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OmniFocus 4.9

23 September 2026 at 20:33

Ken Case:

OmniFocus 4.9 adds support for Siri AI, optional new date parsing assistance via Apple Intelligence, and a range of new and updated App Intents exposed as Shortcuts actions.

[…]

In our testing we’ve found that the new Siri AI hasn’t yet learned how to work with app capabilities that it hasn’t specifically been trained on, even for App Intents that are available in Shortcuts and Spotlight. For example, its understanding of how to work with OmniFocus is based on how it’s been trained to work with the Reminders app. Our work in OmniFocus 4.9 means that Siri now knows about “reminders” in OmniFocus (i.e. actions and Inbox items), “lists” (i.e. projects) which contain reminders, and any “groups” (i.e. folders) that lists have been organized into. Siri can assign and edit reminder due dates, flags, repeat schedules, and notes and image attachments in OmniFocus. This is another great leap forward! But as soon as you try to go beyond what Reminders can do, you find its limits: for example, it doesn’t understand the distinction between due dates, planned dates, and defer dates.

Siri also doesn’t really understand much about how our document-based apps work, because Apple hasn’t trained it on our specific apps or anything equivalent. So, Siri doesn’t know how to make an outline, or a diagram, or a Gantt chart. We expect this to improve over time—after all, we’ve worked with other language models that do understand how to make those things—but it’s important to understand Siri’s current limits.

[…]

With Siri AI, Spotlight becomes even more important as a source for personal context. You can ask Siri about content in your OmniFocus database, so Siri can summarize the actions you’ve completed this week, or tell you what items you might consider working on soon.

My favorite change in OmniFocus 4.9 seems less exiting, but I’m irrationally happy about it. Last year, as part of the Liquid Glass update, they redesigned the Perspectives Bar on iOS to automatically collapse and expand as you scroll. I found the animations distracting, it messed up my muscle memory, and it required lots of extra taps. In 4.9, there’s a new Show Perspective Bar option, which you can set to Automatically (the 4.8 behavior), Manually (stay collapsed but expand when you tap), or Always (show the expanded state all the time, nothing moves). This is, of course, what I chose.

I’m still seeing the previously mentioned glitches in the Mac app with tabbing, spontaneous tag collapsing, and the window moving itself between spaces. The iOS app sometimes still shows an out-of-date list of flagged actions.

Previously:

SpamSieve 3.3.2

18 September 2026 at 21:37

SpamSieve 3.3.2 is an update of my Mac e-mail spam filter that improves remote training, can export more rule information, and improves uninstallation, help, and more. The most significant news is that Microsoft has changed plans again. They will no longer be preventing users from continuing to use Legacy Outlook and in fact will keep it available for download as part of the combined Outlook app. This gives more time to adapt to their change in plans for AppleScript. Exchange (EWS) support remains an issue. Microsoft is still planning to cut off Legacy Outlook users, and Apple has yet to announce when Mail will support Graph. So far, I’ve not heard that it’s enabled in the macOS 27.2 beta.

We’re participating in a seasonal festival of artisanal software called SummerFest. For a limited time, you can get a 25% discount on new purchases of SpamSieve, EagleFiler, and other top Mac apps from our indie developer friends.

Some interesting engineering issues were:

  • Updating NSWorkspace APIs introduced a problem because with the old launchApplication(at:options:), the .withErrorPresentation option is off by default, whereas with the newer openApplication(at:configuration:completionHandler:), the promptsUserIfNeeded option is on by default.

  • Previously, Core Data would strip leading BOMs from NSStrings when saving to a SQLite database. With macOS 27, this happens for Swift Strings, too.

  • I have lots of unit tests that check for memory leaks. These caught a change where addPersistentStore(type:configuration:at:options:) now seems to return an autoreleased store. Without adding a pool, it looked like there was a leak.

  • Also, the tests were finding lots of “leaks” because KVO was retaining NSTabView, which retains a controller. Previously, XCTestCase.waitForExpectations(timeout:) would spin the run loop, and everything would get cleaned up. With Xcode 27 and macOS 27, I need to manually spin the run loop before waiting for the expectations.

  • During a software update, macOS may decide to reload the Dock icon. The application package no longer exists because it’s been replaced with a new version. This wasn’t a problem before because SpamSieve had been drawing to an image in memory and setting that as the Dock icon. Now, with the Liquid Glass–imposed removal of custom Dock icons, macOS tries to load the icon from disk, and rather than handling errors gracefully it will crash. I fixed this by setting an image with a memory representation before starting a software update.

  • SpamSieve 3.3.1 introduced a crash affecting a small but significant number of users when doing a Core Data fetch of a large number of objects. The private [_PFManagedObjectReferenceQueue _processReferenceQueue:] method was seemingly releasing an object that had already been released. What’s odd is that, as far as I can tell, none of the related app code had changed since the previous version, yet suddenly crashes started happening all the way from macOS 12 through macOS 27. If I had to guess, this was triggered by upgrading from Xcode 26.2 to Xcode 26.6. Maybe Swift’s ARC optimizations are doing something subtly different?

    The crash was triggered by an autorelease pool that I had inserted to promptly clean up any temporary objects after a fetch. (The actual fetched objects were returned and used outside of the pool.) Interestingly, both Gemini and ChatGPT were convinced that this is a well-known exception to standard memory management rules. They said it’s never safe to use managed objects outside of a pool they were fetched in because they depend on internal Core Data objects that the pool will have released. I was not able to find any basis for this “belief,” but it was easy enough to test. As expected, removing the pools (during the beta cycle) just made the same crashes happen slightly later.

    I think there’s probably something wrong in Core Data’s internal bookkeeping, but this does not seem to be a popular crash (and I’ve never seen it on any of my Macs), so my code must be doing something uncommon to trigger it. My current best guess is that it was related to calling refreshAllObjects() after saving. (I bet there’s some fancy bookkeeping to make that efficient.) I was doing this throughout the app to break retain cycles so that unused objects could be deallocated. But it wasn’t necessary in this particular case because the entity being fetched has no relationships. So far, removing the refresh seems to have stopped the crashes, but I won’t know for sure until more people have been using this version for a while.

Previously:

Golden Gate Liquid Glass

18 September 2026 at 21:32

Andrew Cunningham:

The Golden Gate update to Liquid Glass solves a fair number of the most common criticisms through both design changes and customizable settings. It doesn’t fix everything, and the changes are primarily iterative—if your quarrel is with the overall design direction, this update won’t help you.

[…]

The net effect of all of Golden Gate’s design changes isn’t huge, and Golden Gate still looks more like Tahoe than like any previous version of macOS. Some controversial decisions remain in effect, like putting any non-squircle icons into “squircle jail” so they can think about what they’ve done.

[…]

But based on reactions I’ve seen during the betas, I expect these tweaks will be just enough to quell the loudest complaints, at least for people who were using Liquid Glass as an excuse not to upgrade.

It’s better than before but doesn’t go anywhere near far enough. Every time I do testing on a pre–Big Sur Mac (or even on Sequoia) I get sad about what we’ve lost.

Howard Oakley:

The most obvious improvement in Liquid Glass from Tahoe is the change from a choice between Clear or Tinted to a replacement slider. This also features one of the new Easter Eggs, a beautifully rendered image of Clarus the Dogcow.

[…]

Quite why Apple has pushed this decision so far forward I don’t understand, though. As with the previous options, for this slider to work, Accessibility settings like Reduce transparency must be turned off, on the basis that you can’t have too much of a good thing.

Basic Apple Guy (Bluesky):

Nature is healing

Jesse Grosjean:

I do appreciate some of the fixes in macOS 27. But this work ain’t done yet. What is even happening in this inspector[…]

TanglyConstant9:

macos 27 system settings graphical bug

Jeff Johnson:

Everyone is going to pretend that Liquid Glass is fine now, “nature is healing”, and such total bullshit.

The Overton NSWindow had shifted so far that nobody even knows what’s good and bad anymore.

macintog:

I skipped macOS 26 entirely out of utter contempt for the criminally bad UI. I’ve lived on macOS 27 since the first Developer Beta. It’s in great shape, the most mature x.0 in many years (unsurprisingly considering they began its development two months earlier than usual).

Jeff Johnson:

The widget only appears only when hovering over a certain area, and the only item in its popup menu is Show App in Finder…

Jim Chaffin:

Opened the new version of Mail in the just ‘upgraded’ Golden Gate and immediately went searching for a fix! Included is what the Mailboxes Sidebar looks like in my few months old iMac.

Benjamin Mayo:

I know they did it purposefully to add more contrast to selected items, but I don’t really like the changing font to bold on Golden Gate sidebars. It changes the text size which looks awkward, particularly when it has to truncate.

Steven Woolgar:

Even with Apple’s OS 27 release, Liquid Glass is the software equivalent of super gluing tacky gold gewgaws all over the place.

Peter Witham:

I don’t think Apple did enough testing on Notes in Golden Gate, those group and sort options are empty?

Dominik Wagner:

Oh, what fresh hell of indistinguishable came this new preview app icon’s choice?

Jeff Johnson:

They totally fixed Liquid Glass on Golden Gate.

Rui Carmo:

And, yes, liquid glass is still there. I don’t care about how many sliders they put in, every time I see that I am reminded that if they needed to add it, they blew it.

Previously:

Update (2026-09-23): Kevin C:

I had the run the betas in a VM, and thought the UI was a great improvement over Tahoe. However, it left me unprepared for the new bright edge highlights around buttons and input fields, etc. on HDR displays when actually updating my MacBook. I was glad I could fiddle around with BetterDisplay and disable XDR settings, which removed them. But I would prefer that an accessibility setting like Reduce Bright Effects considered them to be bright enough to reduce.

Update (2026-09-28): Jeff Johnson:

First, on Sequoia the background of the status bar is gray, distinguishing it and the link URL from the web page content it covers, whereas on Tahoe and Golden Gate the background of the status bar appears to be the same color as the web page.

[…]

The second difference between Sequoia and Liquid Glassy versions is that the Safari status bar appears higher on the page with Liquid Glass, presumably due to the exaggerated window corner radius. Thus, going back to the screenshots of my blog post, Liquid Glass can make the status bar text appear almost as if it were part of the web page text. Notice if that if the scroll position is just right, the status bar text fits vertically between two paragraphs, a situation that I could not reproduce on Sequoia, because the status bar text is closer to the bottom of the Safari window.

Mario Guzmán:

Why does my Apple Music sidebar keep doing this!? It is like the top blur-fade mask will extend to the bottom of the sidebar… I have to then quit the app every time…

Update (2026-10-05): Pierre Igot:

In macOS Golden Gate, when you enable the option to “Increase contrast”, the contrast between the button text label and the button background in standard macOS buttons actually… decreases, since the text label stays black and the background gray gets darker.

Update (2026-10-09): Nico Reese (Mastodon):

macOS does adopt some of Liquid Glass’s physical behavior this year, including subtle click animations and springy, bouncy interactions. One major piece is still missing, though: the fluid morphing between button shapes and interface elements that gives iOS much of its distinctive character.

[…]

Overall, Apple’s 2027 design updates are a mixed bag. macOS benefits enormously from the refinements to Liquid Glass and now delivers the most convincing implementation of the material across Apple’s platforms. watchOS also moves in the right direction, while iOS and iPadOS surprisingly lose much of the depth that made Liquid Glass feel truly physical. tvOS and visionOS, meanwhile, remain strangely inconsistent with the rest of Apple’s ecosystem.

D. Griffin Jones:

Preferences aside, you can clearly see on both platforms that dark mode looks much richer. Light mode can only show the cool new lighting effects on an HDR display, because they’re on a 100% white background. They can’t get any brighter unless you have an HDR screen that can go to eleven. There’s just a hint of gray shading to suggest depth.

We had a solution to this in Aqua, starting with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Toolbars and titlebars were gray, not pure white. It’s true that nothing can be higher contrast than white on black, but literally anything has more contrast than white on white.

Megabits:

Although Liquid Glass has been around for one year, the compatibility issues it introduced haven’t completely disappeared. Drawing on a real-world project, SLIT_STUDIO developer Megabits summarizes several common UIKit adaptation pitfalls and the solutions he used to address them.

Gavin Anderegg:

For most of the past week, I tried living with the default mid-point on the slider. I gave up almost immediately on macOS and iPadOS. I lasted much longer on iOS, but I found the glass to have an unpleasant milky hue. Now I’m back to full tinted, mostly because it’s the only way I can stand looking at notifications.

With the previous version of “tinted”, especially in dark mode, there was a nice amount of contrast. The material looked glassy and translucent, but it was pleasantly dark. In the 27 OSs, the tinted mode looks dull, matte, and significantly lighter. The worst part: it still uses white text, leading to universally worse contrast. So now I get worse readability and effectively none of the refractive effects. That sucks!

Gavin Anderegg:

First up, let’s talk tab bars. I think these looked awful in the original Liquid Glass redesign, and in 27.0 they look even worse. Below is an example of three tab bars from Safari in macOS.

[…]

In macOS 26’s dark mode, I had no problem with system menus even when Liquid Glass was set to clear. In macOS 27, even in the fully tinted mode, the menus have much lower contrast.

Mario Guzmán:

Golden Gate UI is miles better than what Tahoe brought us but at the same time, that’s not saying much because Tahoe set the bar so low…

Apple Music anuncia rebranding e divulga novos logotipos

21 October 2026 at 17:38

Depois de ter dado as caras nas versões beta dos sistemas da Maçã, a nova identidade visual do Apple Music já está entre nós!

Anunciada há pouco pela fabricante do iPhone, ela abre mão de cores sólidas para apostar em efeitos visuais inspirados por ondas sonoras — e que lembram bastante a linguagem de design Liquid Glass.

Introducing a new identity for Apple Music, physically shaped by an original composition from @fredagainagain1 and NEST Acoustics. pic.twitter.com/LFXLIfexPL

— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) October 21, 2026
Apresentando uma nova identidade para o Apple Music, fisicamente moldada por uma composição original de @fredagainagain1 e NEST Acoustics.

Por enquanto, a Apple divulgou apenas o novo logotipo do seu serviço de streaming, criado pela NEST Acoustics.

Para chegar ao resultado acima, eles colocaram o logo do Apple Music no fundo de um tanque preenchido com óleo mineral e o cobriram depois com uma placa transparente no formato de um ícone de app. O efeito de ondas sonoras, por sua vez, foi gerado por uma composição (criada pelo DJ e produtor musical Fred Again…), cuja frequência se moveu pelo tanque.

Foram criadas duas versões do logo: uma apenas com a nota dupla e outra com a wordmark. É possível que as vejamos em uso pelo Apple Music no início de vídeos promocionais e em produções como gravações de shows.

Como tem sido o costume, a Apple publicou um vídeo de bastidores que mostra como se deu o processo de criação desses logos:

A nova identidade visual do Apple Music deverá pintar para todos nas versões 27.2 dos sistemas da Maçã, cujo lançamento é esperado para a semana que vem.

O Apple Music conta com um catálogo de mais de 100 milhões de músicas e 30 mil playlists — muitas delas com suporte a Áudio Espacial (Dolby Atmos) e em altíssima definição, com áudio Lossless. Para quem ama música clássica, há um app dedicado com mais de 5 milhões de faixas, tudo em uma interface simplificada! No Brasil, são três tipos de assinatura: Universitária (R$12,90/mês), Individual (R$23,90/mês) e Familiar (R$40,90/mês). Caso você não seja um assinante, pode testar o serviço de forma gratuita por um mês. Ele também faz parte do pacote de assinaturas da empresa, o Apple One.

NOTA DE TRANSPARÊNCIA: O MacMagazine recebe uma pequena comissão sobre vendas concluídas por meio de links deste post, mas você, como consumidor, não paga nada a mais pelos produtos/serviços ao usar os nossos links de afiliado.

iPhone Duo status icon combines Wi-Fi, cellular, and battery information

16 September 2026 at 23:05

The iPhone Duo status icon introduces a new approach to information that has occupied the top edge of the iPhone display for nearly two decades. Instead of treating Wi-Fi, cellular signal, battery status, and other indicators as a conventional horizontal row, Apple has created a flexible circular system that sits in the corner of the foldable iPhone’s display.

Apple officially describes the feature as a “circular, flexible system” within the status bar rather than one fixed icon containing every piece of information at all times. The distinction is useful: the area can adapt according to context while consolidating status information into a smaller visual region.

It is part of a much larger rethink of iOS 27 specifically for iPhone Duo. The foldable device changes the proportions available to software, particularly when its 7.6-inch inner display is open, forcing Apple to reconsider interface elements that have traditionally stretched horizontally across an iPhone screen.

The status system is one of the smallest changes visually, but it illustrates how extensively Apple has adapted iOS around the new hardware.

Black icons on a light gray background: an iPhone Duo status icon for cellular signal strength, a Wi-Fi symbol, and a battery icon with low charge—each reflecting the clean design language of the iOS 27 status icon set.
Image Credit: Apple Inc.

iPhone Duo status icon replaces the traditional horizontal approach

Conventional iPhones distribute system information across the upper portion of the display. Cellular strength, network type, Wi-Fi connectivity, and battery status typically occupy space around the camera hardware and Dynamic Island.

iPhone Duo approaches that area differently.

Apple says its circular status system nestles into the corner of the screen and presents relevant information including Wi-Fi, cellular strength, battery status, and more. Rather than requiring a long horizontal strip, those indicators can occupy a compact area that works with the device’s unusual screen geometry.

The change is closely connected to the way iPhone Duo handles controls throughout iOS 27.

Apple has moved several interface elements to the side of the display. App navigation, toolbars, the Home Screen Dock, and some Lock Screen controls can use vertical space instead of occupying the familiar horizontal regions found on other iPhones.

The status system therefore becomes part of a vertical interface column rather than an isolated redesign.

This arrangement lets content use more of the display’s height while keeping frequently referenced system information visible. It also creates a consistent location for status details as users change how they hold or fold the device.

A flexible status system suits a foldable iPhone

A foldable phone presents an interface problem that a traditional slab-shaped iPhone does not have.

iPhone Duo can operate through its 5.4-inch outer display or its substantially larger 7.6-inch inner screen. The device can be opened completely, partially folded, rotated, or positioned like a small book.

A static status bar designed around one screen size and orientation would be less effective across those configurations.

Apple instead built iOS 27 so that interface elements can move as the physical device changes. Content reacts to folding, controls relocate, and layouts adjust around the hinge and available screen area.

Apple’s developer guidance provides additional detail about this philosophy. On iPhone Duo, navigation and toolbar controls share vertical space with system elements such as the status bar and Live Activities. When available room becomes limited, application controls can collapse into an overflow menu.

That makes the circular status area part of an adaptive system rather than a cosmetic flourish.

Developers do not need to manually reproduce the status treatment inside their apps. Apple’s standard interface frameworks handle much of the adaptation, especially when applications use native navigation, toolbar, and tab-bar components.

A smartphone lock screen displays the time 9:41 and the date Wed Apr 1, with a background of mountains under a starry night sky and an iPhone Duo status icon next to the Wi-Fi symbol in the corner, reminiscent of iOS 27.
Image Credit: Apple Inc.

Dynamic Island also moves to the side

The status area is not the only familiar piece of iPhone interface that changes position on iPhone Duo.

Apple has redesigned Dynamic Island so that it can sit vertically along the side of both the outer and inner displays. It can expand from that position to present alerts and Live Activities.

The relationship between Dynamic Island and the new circular status system is particularly interesting because Apple now has two dynamic interface areas operating along the same side of the screen.

One communicates persistent device information such as network and battery status. The other handles temporary activity, alerts, and live information.

Apple’s developer documentation refers to this section as shared vertical space. Application controls may also occupy it, meaning iOS has to continuously decide how much room is available and which elements deserve priority.

That is a major departure from the long-standing assumption that the upper corners of an iPhone screen simply contain a predictable row of small status symbols.

On Duo, those regions have become active parts of the interface layout.

Wi-Fi, cellular, and battery remain immediately recognizable

Consolidating status information creates a design challenge: efficiency cannot come at the expense of readability.

Users have spent years learning the meanings of Apple’s individual status symbols. Cellular bars indicate signal strength, the Wi-Fi symbol communicates wireless connectivity, and the battery icon provides an immediate indication of remaining power.

Apple has not discarded those familiar concepts.

Instead, the circular system changes how and where information is presented. The familiar status categories remain present while the container around them becomes more adaptable.

This is particularly useful on a device with two displays. Users should not need to relearn the meaning of basic connectivity information when moving from the outer screen to the inner display.

The same reasoning applies when iPhone Duo changes orientation. Apple can reorganize the status area without changing the fundamental visual vocabulary behind Wi-Fi, cellular, or battery information.

A hand holds a tablet displaying a video of two people talking in a field of purple flowers, with a transcript of their conversation visible on the right side of the screen and an iPhone Duo status icon appearing discreetly at the corner, reflecting the latest iOS 27 design.
Image Credit: Apple Inc.

iPhone Duo pushes the status bar beyond a fixed strip

The new design suggests a different direction for one of the oldest pieces of smartphone interface.

Status bars traditionally behave like reserved strips of screen space. Applications work around them, and their icons occupy predictable positions regardless of what is happening elsewhere.

iPhone Duo turns that space into something more fluid.

The circular system can coexist with a vertical Dynamic Island, changing application controls, Live Activities, and layouts that respond to the physical position of the foldable display. It becomes another component that iOS can arrange rather than a fixed row placed permanently along an edge.

There is no indication that Apple plans to bring the same circular status treatment unchanged to conventional iPhones. Its current implementation is specifically tied to iPhone Duo and the interface requirements created by the foldable hardware.

Still, the design provides a glimpse at how Apple can rethink even deeply established iPhone conventions when the shape of the device changes. When iPhone Duo reaches customers on October 23, the small circular area in the corner will be one of the most immediately visible examples: cellular strength, Wi-Fi, battery information, and other system details occupying a shared adaptive space instead of stretching across the display.

The post iPhone Duo status icon combines Wi-Fi, cellular, and battery information appeared first on AppleMagazine.

Apple software updates bring Siri AI and faster performance across devices

15 September 2026 at 19:41

Apple software updates for 2026 are now reaching supported devices, bringing iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, visionOS 27, and tvOS 27 out of preview and into everyday use. The releases place Siri AI and the next generation of Apple Intelligence at the center, but many of the changes extend well beyond generative AI.

The updates began rolling out September 14. Alongside new intelligence features, Apple has made measurable performance changes to iPhone and iPad, overhauled several parental controls, refined the Liquid Glass interface introduced across its platforms, improved search, and added smaller changes to services including iCloud Shared Albums, Maps, AirPods, and Health.

Siri AI is initially rolling out as a beta in English. Apple says French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish support is scheduled for October, making some of the headline functionality a staggered release rather than something every user receives immediately after installing the new operating systems.

Apple software updates make Siri AI a cross-device feature

Siri AI is built around personal context, onscreen awareness, expanded app actions, and access to current information from the web. The assistant can draw on material stored in areas such as Messages, Mail, and Photos when responding to requests, while Visual Intelligence allows users to ask about content currently displayed on their screen.

On iPhone, Siri mode is integrated directly into the Camera app. A user can point the camera at something and ask questions or perform supported actions based on what appears in front of them.

The assistant also gains a dedicated Siri app that synchronizes conversation history privately through iCloud. A conversation started on an iPhone can therefore be continued on an iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, or Apple Vision Pro.

Write with Siri expands the assistant into text creation and editing. Users can describe the material they need drafted or ask Siri to refine existing writing without moving to a separate application.

Apple Intelligence is also adding more specialized features outside Siri. Photos receives Spatial Reframing, Extend, and an updated Clean Up tool. Image Playground can generate images in a wider selection of styles, including photorealistic output, with metadata designed to identify AI-created material and planned support for the SynthID standard.

Safari can automatically organize tabs by topic and monitor webpages for changes, such as a product returning to stock or a price dropping. Apple is also introducing tools that can create custom extensions from a description.

An iPhone screen with Siri activated, displaying a request to email Elton about free Saturdays in November and asking to bring gluten-free snack options—all seamlessly integrated with the new OS 27 for enhanced Siri functionality.
Image Credit: Apple Inc.

iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 put more emphasis on speed

Some of the less visible changes could be among the most frequently experienced.

Apple says apps can launch up to 30% faster on iPhone and iPad after installing the new software. Photos can load an image up to 70% faster immediately after it is taken, while AirDrop transfers can be up to 80% faster.

iPadOS 27 receives additional work around file handling and multitasking. Apple says browsing files and transferring them to an external USB drive can be as much as five times faster, accompanied by smoother window closing, switching, and dragging.

Connectivity behavior has also been adjusted. Transitions between cellular connections and Wi-Fi are designed to happen more seamlessly, while Messages no longer needs to hold subsequent texts behind a large photo or video being uploaded over a slow connection.

Search across Spotlight, Photos, and Mail has been revised on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Mail gains a new ranking system for Top Hits, while Apple describes search across the three platforms as more stable and comprehensive.

Liquid Glass has received another round of refinements after becoming the common visual language across Apple’s software. A new Settings slider allows users to adjust the interface from an ultraclear appearance toward a more heavily tinted version, and app icons have been sharpened.

Screen Time and child safety controls get a substantial redesign

Apple has also expanded the controls available to families rather than limiting this software cycle to interface and AI work.

The setup process for child accounts now allows parents to specify which apps a child can access from the beginning, with additional apps added later if appropriate. Ask to Browse extends approval controls to Safari, letting parents require permission before a child opens a new website.

Communication Safety has been expanded beyond sexually explicit material to detect and intervene when gore or violent content appears in shared images and videos.

Screen Time presents average device usage and frequently used apps more prominently. Parents can establish daily time allowances across categories such as Entertainment, Games, and Social Media, while Schedules can change which apps remain available at different points during a weekday or weekend.

These changes are particularly notable because they work at the account and platform level rather than requiring parents to configure separate controls inside every individual app.

A smartphone shows a child texting their dad, asking to visit “cyberpetsgame.net,” with options to decline or approve the request. The game features cute animal icons, highlighting parental controls made even better with the latest Apple software updates.
Image Credit: Apple Inc.

watchOS 27, visionOS 27, and tvOS 27 add targeted upgrades

The smaller platforms receive their own additions rather than simply inheriting features from iPhone and Mac.

watchOS 27 introduces a dedicated Siri app, a dynamic app grid, expanded Smart Stack suggestions, and a new single-handed tap gesture for opening widgets. Workout Buddy can now operate without the paired iPhone nearby, while Cycle Tracking in Health adds support related to perimenopause and menopause.

visionOS 27 brings Siri AI and Visual Intelligence into Apple Vision Pro, where the assistant can respond to objects a user is physically looking at. Panoramas can be converted into spatial scenes and used as personal Environments, while Mac users can bring compatible 3D models into their physical space to preview and edit them.

Apple says Vision Pro can now start up and connect to Wi-Fi up to three times faster. New curved windows, Control Center changes, eye-controlled notification expansion, and improvements to Dwell Control further adjust the spatial interface.

tvOS 27 takes a narrower approach. Apple Music gains high-resolution lossless audio support, Apple Podcasts has been redesigned, and additional text-size accessibility options have been introduced. Apple TV 4K owners can install the release on supported second- and third-generation models.

Other changes stretch across device categories. iCloud Shared Albums can now retain full-resolution photos and videos while making participation easier from Android and Windows devices. AirPods gain custom EQ settings, Maps expands Flyover with AI-assisted aerial detail, and Missed-message notifications and unread counts now synchronize more quickly and reliably across Apple devices.

With the September 14 releases now public, the software cycle shifts from preview demonstrations to staggered feature delivery. Siri AI language expansion begins in October, while some Apple Intelligence capabilities and individual app features will continue arriving through later updates rather than being tied exclusively to the initial 27.0 releases.

Apple software updates - A smartwatch screen running visionOS 27 shows an airline confirmation call, code LUI8L01, for a flight from JFK to RAK at 10:05 PM on April 17. Call duration is 47 seconds; time is 10:09.
Image Credit: Apple Inc.

The post Apple software updates bring Siri AI and faster performance across devices appeared first on AppleMagazine.

macOS 27 Golden Gate

14 September 2026 at 21:51

Apple (release notes, security, enterprise, developer, full installer, IPSW):

Explore what’s new for macOS 27.

The page is designed in an annoying way that requires sideways scrolling, and there doesn’t seem to be a PDF list of the new features like in previous years.

See also:

Jeff Johnson:

There’s also a DEPRECATION NOTICE at the top of the man page that lists the diskutil replacements for hdiutil subcommands.

Patrick Wardle:

Fixed: launchd no longer supports loading launchd property list files with the quarantine extended attribute.

Dave Nanian:

[Even] though a bootable backup is properly configured to boot, they aren’t showing up as choices in either the startup disk preference pane or the startup picker. (FB24210103, reported quite a while ago, Apple friends.)

Previously:

Update (2026-09-17): See also: Hacker News.

Andrew Cunningham (Hacker News):

Generative AI is unavoidable if you install macOS 27 Golden Gate. I’m being very literal: There used to be a toggle you could hit if you wanted to turn off Apple Intelligence and delete the gigabytes’ worth of AI models it would download to your disk, and now there isn’t. Apple Intelligence defines the Golden Gate release, in everything from its marketing to its features to the chips it runs on to the amount of space it takes on your disk.

[…]

More impressively, for apps that support it, the iPhone Mirroring window can now be resized dynamically while running apps. Apps will resize themselves to take up all the available space, and once the window is wide enough, you can even take advantage of multi-column iPad-style views for the apps that offer them.

[…]

For most Mac users, though, Golden Gate is a no-brainer update with few major downsides. It won’t hurt anything to wait until the 27.1 or 27.2 release if you’re already on macOS 15 Sequoia or macOS 26 Tahoe and you’re not in a hurry.

Juli Clover:

macOS Golden Gate: 10 Features to Try First

Paul Haddad:

Did Virtualization under 27 get hit with the slow stick? Trying to run a Mac VM on my M1 Ultra and it feels basically unusable. Getting Intel flashbacks.

Jeff Johnson:

In System Settings Privacy & Security, the Accessibility pane has been renamed to Device Control and Data Access.

Avi Drissman:

Have you been noticing that, starting with macOS 27, you have been consistently failing to SSH to a remote machine? Is it the case that the remote machine’s password ends with a shifted character?

There is a new setting: “Shift Return sends Meta Return” under Settings > Profiles > (profile) > Keyboard. This setting (enabled by default!) will cause a shift-return keypress to insert an ESC before the return is sent.

Rich Trouton:

As part of testing macOS Golden Gate, it was discovered by myself and others that MDM enrollment does not appear to completely work.

Adam Maxwell (tweet):

Golden Gate broke AuthorizationExecuteWithPrivileges such that spawned tasks no longer inherit PATH of the calling process[…]

Daniel Compton:

After upgrading to macOS 27 Golden Gate, my beloved copy of 1Password 7 started crashing every time I unlocked it.

[…]

If you’re planning ahead, you can disable Watchtower from Settings before you upgrade to macOS 27, but if you’ve already upgraded, then you’ll need to disable it with the following terminal command[…]

Update (2026-09-21): Benjamin Mayo:

Ever since updating to Golden Gate, my Mac now periodically makes a scratchy paper alert sound. No idea from what.

Chris Pepper:

Hopefully 1Password will upgrade v7 for OS 27 compatibility, but I can’t count on them fixing bugs in v7 — they’re pushing users to v8.

I found a ‘fix’ for this crash, but that command didn’t work (even after enabling Full Disk Access for Terminal so it could actually execute), and isn’t available on iPhone or iPad.

Nicholas Riley:

Golden Gate status: wow, the new menu extra/Control Center area is rough. Not just unpolished UI behaviors but multiple crashes. Hidden Bar is no longer functional and none of the replacements I found actually worked, while having about 100 features I don’t want.

System keyboard shortcuts also seem to be an area that weren’t well tested. My preferred screenshot shortcuts were ignored until I opened that section of System Settings, and some Siri thing created a conflict with Spotlight so I get both of them when I press ⇧⌘Space.

Previously:

Update (2026-09-23): Jesse Squires:

macOS golden gate is still shockingly terrible in unexpected ways.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

I’m no math expert, but I’m pretty sure this doesn’t add up to anywhere near 16GB. I’ve only started seeing this dialog in the release build of macOS 27.0, despite running the betas all summer, so clearly there are some ghosts in this build

Mario Guzmán:

Okay… how do you

  1. make everything super huge like the text and pictures… while
  2. having way more empty space than you need AND STILL have to
  3. truncate your text labels?

8 of the 9 text labels are truncated.

Can we please have designers who know how to design for DESKTOP software and NOT magazines/print?

Jeff Johnson:

There are a surprising number of behavioral bugs in Golden Gate. It's not just a superficial update. Apple is basically breaking AppKit.

Mark Lilback:

I reported a bug to Apple in May, found while building Alcove. Two OS releases later it still isn’t fixed. It has gotten worse with each one.

[…]

On the betas the whole window went blank after the Cmd-Tab: sidebar, content, detail pane, status bar, everything but the toolbar. On the 27.0 release it usually doesn’t wait for the Cmd-Tab. In 5 of 6 clean launches the window came up with only the toolbar drawn. Cmd-Tabbing away and back doesn’t fix it. It moves the sidebar’s first row up under the traffic-light buttons and leaves the rest of the window empty[…]

Jeff Johnson (Reddit):

Golden Gate Finder bug:

If you start dragging a file, the mouse scroll wheel stops working.

Jeff Johnson:

I’m seeing a bug on Golden Gate where main menu item titles are not displayed if the item is added to the menu after launch. Examples: the Safari Develop menu and the Profile menus of Chrome and Firefox.

Update (2026-09-24): Avi Drissman:

It’s bizarre that hiding a main menu item would hold the space rather then shift things over.

Jeff Johnson:

Search on Golden Gate is twice as good.

Update (2026-09-25): Ric Ford:

Randy Singer emailed us about printer and scanner failures following macOS 27 installation. Fortunately, there’s a fix: reinstalling Apple’s deprecated and removed Rosetta 2 emulation code[…]

Paul Kafasis:

We’re also already recommending upgrading your Mac to Golden Gate. The new OS includes several important audio improvements, and as a result, Golden Gate provides the best experience when using our apps. Below, you’ll find details on key bug fixes Apple included in MacOS 27.

pdfu (via Jeff Johnson):

Hidden behind a feature flag, the System Settings app can now be resized in any direction. You can make the app window narrower than the default too, or adjust the sidebar to get even more space.

Update (2026-09-28): Matt:

Steve Jobs would fire the entire company and replace them with AI if he was alive to see this

Collin Allen:

Turns out, Backblaze is half busted on macOS 27 and there’s no fix yet. Have to launch /Library/Backblaze.bzpkg/bzbmenu.app manually for now, it seems.

Update (2026-10-05): Karsten Kusche:

Kudos to 1Password for providing an update for version 7 on iOS and macOS to restore compatibility with this year’s operating systems!!

MacVoices #26255: Joe Kissell Takes Control of Apple’s New Operating Systems (1)

By: Chuck
14 September 2026 at 13:07
Joe Kissell discusses a new approach to Take Control Books’s coverage of Apple’s latest operating systems, including separate books for macOS Golden Gate, iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, plus a cross-platform guide to Siri AI and Apple Intelligence. Joe explains the challenges of documenting changing betas, evaluates Apple’s emphasis on polish and bug fixes, and examines Liquid Glass and lingering problems in Contacts. (Part 1) 

💾

Developing for iPhone Duo

11 September 2026 at 18:58

Craig Hockenberry:

It looks like Xcode 27.1 is needed to test the iPhone Duo resizability - and that hasn’t been uploaded yet.

Jordan Morgan:

Cupertino and Friends™️ dropped six new videos over developing, designing, and crafting great apps for the nascent device:

  1. Design for iPhone Duo
  2. Prepare your app for iPhone Duo
  3. Raise the bar with iPhone Duo
  4. Strike a pose with adaptive layouts on iPhone Duo
  5. Leverage multiple displays and scenes on iPhone Duo
  6. Build a great camera experience for iPhone Duo

Nathan Manceaux-Panot:

In the Duo dev video, they describe how text buttons can’t be moved to the new vertical sidebar, as opposed to icon buttons.

I wonder if that’s one of the reasons Liquid Glass pushed hard for icon buttons, even though these are harder to understand; they make the vertical layout possible at all.

Nico Reese:

Totally confusing to me how the toolbar is ordered completely different between both modes here.

Dennis Oberhoff:

I think the problem with the iPhone Duo for developers is mostly that it does not create any new opportunities in the form of a new market or a new audience.

Previously:

Update (2026-09-17): See also: Accidental Tech Podcast.

Previously:

Update (2026-09-18): Xcode 27.1 Beta (Hacker News) adds support for iPhone Duo, but:

StandBy is unavailable in the iPhone Duo Simulator runtime.

Running and debugging most app extensions is unavailable in the iPhone Duo Simulator runtime.

Update (2026-09-21): Léo Natan:

Apple writing example code in Objective C, in 2026. They are REALLY desperate for developers to support this device.

Natalia Panferova:

On iPhone Duo, navigation controls, toolbar actions, and tabs can move into a shared vertical bar along the edge of the display, leaving more vertical space for content. Apps built with the iOS 27.1 SDK get this adaptation through standard containers such as NavigationStack, NavigationSplitView, and TabView. We continue to declare toolbar actions in their usual placements, and SwiftUI determines how to present them in the current context.

Imthaz Ahamed:

I was going through the iPhone Duo specs and realised the inner screen has a different pixel density to the outer screen. The inner 7.6-inch folding display runs at 1878×2670 and 430 ppi, while the outer 5.4-inch display runs at 1398×2034 and 460 ppi.

Jesper:

The iPhone Duo remains interesting, and is clearly a technical tour-de-force that is the outcome of deep thinking about what a foldable phone can be. But the things that sparkle in my mind when I consider it is just the details. They are very important details that yield a noticeably different product, but they are sprinkles on top of a downward slope in user interface design at Apple that does not care any longer about what users or developers want. All that's important is for this year's device to uproot fundamentals and demand that everyone conform to an arbitrary new intuition.

Update (2026-09-29): Craig Hockenberry:

I don’t remember seeing this mentioned anywhere, but you have to be careful about where you place your safe area constraints.

My first pass moved the constraints on scroll/collection views from the superview leading/trailing to the safe area leading/trailing.

[…]

But if you look at Settings and Safari - our only two examples of “what’s right”, you’ll see the scroll indicators are “outside” the navigation bar and hug the edge of the device bezel.

How to Turn Off Liquid Glass in iOS 27: Apple Publishes a Slider, Not a Switch

11 September 2026 at 03:45

There is no off switch for Liquid Glass in iOS 27. The only control Apple has published is a slider in Settings that moves the effect anywhere from ultra-clear to fully tinted, and nothing in Apple’s description of the update removes the design. The reason this search keeps coming back is that Liquid Glass is […]

The post How to Turn Off Liquid Glass in iOS 27: Apple Publishes a Slider, Not a Switch appeared first on The Mac Observer.

RC do iOS 27 inclui controles customizáveis no app Câmera, novidades para o Apple TV Remote e mais

10 September 2026 at 02:11

Como esperado, as Releases Candidates (RCs) dos próximos sistemas operacionais da Apple foram disponibilizadas hoje, logo após o evento especial de apresentação dos novos iPhones, Apple Watches e AirPods.

Ainda que se tratem das versões esperadas para o lançamento, que acontecerá na semana que vem, elas trouxeram algumas mudanças e novidades que vale a pena conferirmos. A começar pelo app Câmera (Camera) do iOS 27, que ganhou a opção de customizar os botões da barra de ferramentas.

iOS 27 RC has custom controls for the camera app pic.twitter.com/7CeV6kuQ2n

— Aaron Zollo (@zollotech) September 9, 2026
O iOS 27 RC traz controles personalizados para o aplicativo de câmera.

iOS 27 final release adds the long-rumoured customisable controls toolbar in the Camera app pic.twitter.com/PJT2Wqf2eF

— Benjamin Mayo (@bzamayo) September 9, 2026
A versão final do iOS 27 adiciona a tão aguardada barra de ferramentas de controles personalizáveis ​​ao aplicativo Câmera.

A RC do iOS 27 também adiciona um design renovado, além de dois recursos, ao Apple TV Remote: um inicializador de aplicativos, bem como os principais conteúdos do aplicativo aberto na Apple TV. É possível também visualizar a lista “Continuar assistindo”.

Apple TV Remote is getting more useful. #AppleEvent

iOS 27 RC adds a refreshed design and two features, both currently disabled:
1. An app launcher to open apps on your Apple TV.
2. Top Shelf content from the selected app on your Apple TV, with Continue Watching as a fallback. pic.twitter.com/Si3EZc1b8L

— pdfu (@itspdfu) September 9, 2026
O Apple TV Remote está ficando mais útil. #AppleEvent

O iOS 27 RC traz um design renovado e dois recursos, ambos atualmente desativados:
1. Um inicializador de aplicativos para abrir apps na sua Apple TV.
2. Conteúdo da “Top Shelf” do aplicativo selecionado na sua Apple TV, com a opção “Continuar Assistindo” como alternativa padrão.

Embora não seja necessariamente um novo recurso, o sistema também inclui um easter egg na seção de customização do Liquid Glass, presente no app Ajustes (Settings). Ao rolar pela prévia exibida no próprio app até o fim, é possível visualizar uma animação que representa uma versão repaginada do Clarus, mascote do famoso desenho de computador Dogcow criado pela Apple nos anos 1980 — o qual emite o som “Moof!”, que mistura o mugido de uma vaca com o latido de um cão.

iOS 27 has a fun Easter egg found in the Liquid Glass settings. Scroll to the bottom and keep scrolling to see it. Here is a screen recording on my iPhone on iOS 27 RC so you can see it. pic.twitter.com/HJ3MxIApnp

— Aaron Zollo (@zollotech) September 9, 2026
O iOS 27 traz um Easter egg divertido nas configurações do Liquid Glass. Role até o final e continue rolando para vê-lo. Aqui está uma gravação de tela feita no meu iPhone rodando o iOS 27 RC, para que você possa conferir.

O iOS 27 (bem como o watchOS 27) também incluirá um aplicativo Saúde (Health) repaginado que utiliza a Apple Intelligence para interpretar melhor seus dados de saúde. As novidades incluem uma aba Insights com um resumo das informações mais relevantes do momento, além de orientações personalizadas, avaliações, uma nova pontuação de “prontidão” e o cálculo da sua “Idade de Saúde”.

🩻 iOS 27 RC Brings a more vibrant and reworked Health App – pending the upcoming improvements to it in an expected iOS 27.1 update. pic.twitter.com/dZgI9QmrKJ

— Is iOS Stable? (@isiosstable) September 9, 2026

As novidades incluem também uma nova aba de longevidade, que utiliza métricas do Apple Watch e do iPhone para avaliar sua saúde com base no sono, na movimentação, na saúde cardíaca e em outros fatores.

Divulgação/Apple

Além disso, o app renovado permitirá que os usuários realizem avaliações detalhadas sobre a movimentação do corpo, o que pode ajudar pessoas que estão envelhecendo ou se recuperando de lesões. Um instrutor pode até demonstrar certos movimentos para você experimentar durante a avaliação — uma experiência que, segundo a Apple, equivale a ter um treinador acompanhando você pessoalmente.

A versão atualizada do aplicativo Saúde será lançada ainda neste ano — possivelmente com o iOS 27.1 —, a princípio somente em inglês (versão dos EUA).

watchOS 27

A RC do watchOS 27 inclui um novo mostrador chamado Siri Modular, disponível tanto nos Apple Watches intermediários quanto nos modelos Ultra — no entanto, a versão para este último oferece algumas opções de personalização adicionais.

Ambas as versões do mostrador utilizam o mesmo layout, que conta com uma complicação na linha central superior, a hora (centralizada), uma complicação larga e uma linha com três complicações circulares. O Apple Watch Ultra também oferece opções de borda, adicionando mais uma maneira de configurar o novo mostrador.

New Siri Modular face in watchOS 27 pic.twitter.com/ayOdDUkbrg

— Ben (@idocode01) September 9, 2026

Três opções de estilo permitem ajustar a tela do relógio. A primeira opção apresenta o relógio mais alto e três complicações circulares. O segundo estilo traz um relógio compacto, acompanhado pela complicação larga e três complicações circulares. O terceiro estilo apresenta um relógio de tamanho médio com uma complicação larga.

Tanto no modelo intermediário quanto no Ultra também há opções de fonte para o relógio. Por fim, há a opção de definir a cor do mostrador, incluindo diversas novidades como bronze-escuro, ouro-brilhante e outras novas alternativas.

via TechCrunch, 9to5Mac

Preparing to Update to Golden Gate

3 September 2026 at 19:34

Howard Oakley:

As those new models start shipping on 22 September, the window for the first public release of Golden Gate has narrowed to 15-22 September, with greatest likelihood on the same day as the arrival of those new Macs.

[…]

At the same time as the release of Golden Gate, we should get Tahoe 26.7 and Sequoia 15.8, but it looks increasingly likely that the final version of Sonoma has been 14.8.9, released on 6 August.

Howard Oakley:

As we prepare to flee from the visual horrors of macOS Tahoe at last, this article is a reminder that it wasn’t the first major release of macOS that has had blatant bugs in its interface, although I suspect it may be unique in that those were intentional. While progress in Golden Gate has been limited, I hope you’ll find it rectifies some of the worst errors of Liquid Glass.

Many Macs will be left behind, as Golden Gate drops support for Intel.

Normally, I update around January. With Tahoe I waited until July. This time, I’m considering updating to Golden Gate soon after its release. The downside is that Xcode 26 doesn’t run on Golden Gate, so I would have to drop support for many older macOS versions (about 3% of my customers’ Macs). But it seems like Apple’s going to force that soon, anyway, as one of the next Xcode 27 updates will likely drop support for Tahoe. I want to get off Xcode 26, both to use the newer SDK and because there are various debugging/testing things that don’t work properly.

Mario Guzmán:

I am working on a new app. Right now, I am targeting back to macOS Sequoia. I think that would be a good OS to target but becoming quite old with Golden Gate just around the corner. […] I wonder if I should just target macOS Golden Gate and focus testing on that.

Previously:

Update (2026-09-04): Isaiah Carew:

i’m in the exact same boat. i’d really like to stay on macOS 15 and whatever Xcode works there. it means i can still build things in the old UI and mostly Tahoe and GG respect it.

but recent bug reports from beta testers and the inability to see these bugs on my VM has made me feel very stuck here — like apple has purposefully made it difficult to move forward and support older versions too.

Update (2026-09-11): Howard Oakley:

What if any preparations do you need to make before upgrading or updating then, or in the coming weeks?

Update (2026-09-16): Adam C. Engst:

So who should upgrade immediately, and who should wait? Let’s consider a few broad categories of users.

Apple’s foldable iPhone sets the standard that Google, Oppo, and Vivo plan to follow next year

2 September 2026 at 19:30
3D render claiming to depict Apple's first foldable iPhone (image: Jon Prosser)
3D render claiming to depict Apple’s first foldable iPhone (image: Jon Prosser)

Even before its unveiling, Apple’s first foldable iPhone has already become the design benchmark the rest of the industry is racing to copy. Google, Oppo and Vivo are now preparing to adopt the same dual ultra-thin glass (UTG) structure Apple pioneered, TheElec reports citing industry sources.

The dual-UTG approach places one sheet of ultra-thin glass above the OLED panel as the cover window and a second sheet beneath it for structural support. The upper layer, thinned to tens of micrometers, protects the display from impacts and scratches while still folding repeatedly. The lower layer spreads stress around the hinge and stiffens the panel from below. Together, the two glass layers give manufacturers tighter control over rigidity and folding stress, which helps reduce the crease that has long defined cheaper foldables.

Apple chose this construction as a late entrant precisely because it wanted to minimize crease visibility and raise overall quality rather than simply match existing products. That decision is now being treated as the new premium standard. Samsung Display is already building dual-UTG OLED prototypes to the specifications of Google, Oppo, and Vivo, working with partner Dowoo Insys on both the upper and lower glass layers. Mass production is targeted for the companies’ 2027 launches.

Samsung’s own Galaxy Z Fold8 series takes a different route: a single UTG layer on top plus a titanium alloy film and reinforced titanium plate underneath. That architecture is simpler and cheaper to manufacture at scale. Apple’s rivals, however, have decided the extra glass is worth the cost. Oppo and Vivo in particular have made crease reduction and durability central selling points for their Find N and X Fold lines. Google is expected to follow the same path with its next Pixel Fold.

The three companies all sell book-style foldables — the Pixel Fold series, Find N series, and X Fold series. Their current flagships are the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, Find N6 and X Fold6. New models using dual UTG are slated for early 2027 at Oppo, the first half of the year at Vivo, and the second half at Google.

For the UTG supply chain the shift is unambiguously good news. Even if overall foldable shipments stay flat, each device will now consume two sheets of glass instead of one. Apple’s decision to lead with dual UTG did not just improve its own product; it doubled the material content the rest of the market is now lining up to use.
‎
MacDailyNews Take: Apple leads. All others follow. As usual.

As with fingerprint and facial recognition, when Apple debuts a foldable iPhone, then foldable smartphones will have been done right. – MacDailyNews, January 17, 2019


‎
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!

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The post Apple’s foldable iPhone sets the standard that Google, Oppo, and Vivo plan to follow next year appeared first on MacDailyNews.

Ending the Golden Era for Backward-Compatible Apps

1 September 2026 at 21:08

Matthias Gansrigler-Hrad:

I don’t appreciate being forced by Xcode 27 to drop support for macOS 10.13-11.0. It’s my decision which OSes I want to support, not Apple’s. Yes, I can keep Xcode 26 around until submissions require Xcode 27, but what then?

Originally, Xcode 27 was documented as supporting Big Sur on Intel Macs, but now the earliest is Monterey.

I’m frustrated, too, but it’s more honest than the recent releases that claimed to support deployment on older macOS versions when Apple clearly hadn’t tested that it actually worked. I filed bugs, and Apple kept responding that they’d fixed it, when they hadn’t.

Using old versions of Xcode isn’t a great solution because they aren’t supported on Golden Gate. Swift also makes it more difficult to call newer APIs when using an older SDK. You can’t just copy/paste a method prototype or constant value and conditionally use it when running on a newer OS.

Ighor July:

I eventually found a hidden workaround that changes the errors back into warnings. That is good news, but it does not make the concern disappear. The setting is undocumented, absent from the normal Xcode interface, and currently being tested only in a beta toolchain. The larger question is what Apple intends to enforce when Xcode 27 is final and, later, when App Store submission requirements move to its SDKs.

[…]

Apple’s current Xcode system requirements list Xcode 26 with deployment targets beginning at iOS 15 and macOS 11. Yet developers have been able to enter older targets manually. In an Apple Developer Forums discussion about Xcode 26, an Apple product manager explained that the published deployment target range is aligned with simulator support and on-device debugging. The accepted answer confirms that an iOS 13 target can still build even though it falls below the range in Apple’s table.

My own tests went further. Xcode 26.5 compiled a project targeting iOS 9.0. It warned that the target was older than the supported range, but the build succeeded. On macOS, I have compiled current apps with deployment targets as old as macOS 10.9. Xcode warned me, but it still produced working applications.

[…]

For iOS and iPadOS, staying on Xcode 26 is not a lasting option. Apple has repeatedly made a current Xcode and SDK mandatory for new App Store submissions. […] If any one of those conditions fails, iOS and iPadOS developers will have no normal App Store path for publishing new updates that still support versions older than 15.

Previously:

Update (2026-09-07): Léo Natan:

Just want to remind you guys that if you move to Xcode 27, the only “officially” supported and sanction Xcode for GG, UIDesignRequiresCompatibility is no longer respected across the 27 OSes (apps built with older Xcodes still are). So you might suddenly find out you have a lot of work ahead of you, adding support for the dreaded Glass. And 27 Glass is not the same as 26 Glass. That can be an issue if you skipped 26 altogether but still want to support it.

Previously:

Update (2026-09-11): Nick Lockwood:

I mostly ignored the Xcode 27 betas (mainly due to the barely-usable Device Hub) so I didn’t realize the passive-aggressive prompts to drop support for iOS < 15 that you get when submitting apps is being backed up by Xcode 27 refusing to compile apps at all unless you bump the deployment target 😧

Apple continua desenvolvendo iPhone comemorativo de vidro, diz Gurman

11 August 2026 at 13:29

Após o rumor de que a Apple teria cancelado o desenvolvimento do projeto de um iPhone comemorativo de 20 anos da linha, o jornalista Mark Gurman afirmou em nova publicação na Bloomberg que os planos da empresa para esse suposto futuro aparelho seguem mais do que de pé.

Como ele já havia relatado anteriormente, a ideia da Apple é lançar os modelos Pro do ano que vem (chamados internamente de V73 e V74) com um design majoritariamente de vidro — material que estará tanto na parte frontal quanto na traseira, bem como na lateral, que será curva.

Essa lateral deverá contar com uma faixa metálica adicional para lhe dar suporte — uma adição que teria ocorrido no meio do projeto, depois que a Apple passou a enfrentar problemas na tentativa de conectar os dois painéis de vidro sem qualquer material intermediário.

Em resumo, o roteiro de produtos planejados pela Apple não teria mudado — os iPhones de vidro já estariam em fase avançada de testes e praticamente finalizados — e fontes na empresa afirmaram que ela espera “causar impacto” com a mudança no ano que vem.

Antes desse lançamento, no entanto, a Apple deverá lançar neste ano o primeiro iPhone dobrável (junto aos novos modelos Pro, com visual semelhante aos da geração atual), bem como o “iPhone 18”, o “iPhone Air 2” e o “iPhone 18e” — estes, porém, apenas no início do ano que vem.

iPhone 17 Pro Max

Cores: prateado, laranja-cósmico ou azul-intenso
Armazenamento: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB ou 2TB
R$ 9.899,10
R$ 12.499,00

iPhone 17 Pro

Cores: prateado, laranja-cósmico ou azul-intenso
Armazenamento: 256GB, 512GB ou 1TB
R$ 9.599,00
R$ 11.499,00

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❌