At an event in Washington, partisanship took a back seat as elected officials, religious leaders, parents and artists called for reining in artificial intelligence.

Generic questions get generic answers, experts say, so to avoid mediocre recommendations, you’ll need to write smarter prompts. Follow these tips.

“Recursive self-improvement” is the idea that artificial intelligence could learn to build and train itself, creating exponential new progress — and risk.

Mr. Trump called Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, while Mr. Huang was onstage in Los Angeles and criticized calls to slow down and regulate A.I.

So, with some trepidation, I report that Lex Friedman has brought Strategery back from the dead. There are some clever updates, with a better visual design and even the addition of chaos mode, but I must admit I immediately set the look back to the original. Be careful with this one.

The post Strategery Returns to iPhone and iPad appeared first on MacSparky.

Alex Bores, who lost a congressional primary contest that revolved around A.I. regulation, is trying to position himself at the center of the conversation for the next presidential election.

Today’s chatbots aren’t likely to help lone actors invent a deadly pathogen, experts say. But newer models, trained in biology, may need stronger safeguards.

I’ve made my choice. I’m buying the iPhone Duo instead of the iPhone 18 Pro Max.

Here’s my full explanation and my read on the tradeoffs.

The post Why I’m Buying the iPhone Duo Instead of the iPhone 18 Pro Max appeared first on MacSparky.

On this episode of Mac Power Users, Stephen and I break down Apple’s September event, starting with the “Ternus Doctrine” and what it means for Siri AI. We compare the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro, then dig into the new Apple Watch and AirPods features. In More Power Users, we share what we ordered and why.

Episode Links

• Everything Apple Just Announced – Stephen’s YouTube Recap
• Apple Event September 9 2026: Introducing iPhone Duo and more
• Apple Plans to Squeeze More Revenue From the App Store, Report Says
• Apple unveils iPhone Duo
• I Tested Apple’s New FOLDABLE iPhone Duo
• iPhone Duo MagSafe Accessory Photo
• AppleCare One Family
• Apple debuts iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max
• iPhone 18 Pro & Duo: A Photographer’s Reaction
• About Audio Intelligence features on Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4
• Introducing Apple Watch Series 12, with the all-new Health Sensing System

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

• NetSuite: The leading integrated cloud business software suite. Try NetSuite Next for free.
• Squarespace: Save 50% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code MPU

The post Mac Power Users 866: The Ternus Doctrine appeared first on MacSparky.

This past week, Apple took the wraps off the new iPhone Pro and the brand-new iPhone Duo. It’s a big deal, and a lot of ink has already been spilled over it. But something else happened that I’d like to shed more light on.

John Ternus gave his first keynote as Apple CEO. And his opening remarks in that job carry real weight. He chose to use that moment to make his case for Apple’s place in AI. (Yes, he called it AI.) It starts at the 3:32 mark in Apple’s YouTube keynote and it was the clearest statement of intent we’ve heard from Apple on the subject.

His words:

AI makes entirely new kinds of experiences possible. And AI can become even more useful when it brings together your life with the apps, services, and products you use every day. And this means the product at the center of your experiences becomes even more essential. What I like to think of as an intelligent personal hub.

It’s the intersection of broad new capability and a deep understanding of your personal context that makes this idea so powerful.

There’s no product in the world better designed to be your intelligent personal hub than iPhone.

As your personal hub, your iPhone can do so much more for you because it understands your context. This includes your calendar, your relationships, your routines, the most private details of your daily life.

It’s personal intelligence that’s actually personal.

He described the iPhone as an “intelligent personal hub.” His argument was pretty straightforward. If you were building the ideal device for personal AI, you’d want something you carry everywhere, with enough processing power to run models locally and a connection to more capable models when needed. You’d want cameras and microphones so it could understand what’s going on around you. And you’d want a screen. There are still plenty of things I’d rather look at than have a robot read to me.

You’d end up with something a lot like an iPhone.

The other half of his argument was about context. A capable model gets much more useful when it knows something about you. Your calendar, your relationships, and your routines are already on your phone. With your permission, that information could help it do things that a chatbot starting from scratch can’t.

Of course, that’s also the information you’d be least comfortable handing over to some company’s servers. Ternus tied Apple’s approach directly to that concern. Run the models on the device whenever possible. Use Private Cloud Compute when the job needs more power. His promise was “personal intelligence that’s actually personal.”

For lack of a better term, I’m calling this the Ternus Doctrine.

I’ve been making versions of this argument for a while. Apple’s access to local context has always seemed like a big advantage to me. But hearing Ternus put it together at the opening of the keynote (his first as CEO) felt different. This was the position he chose to stake out before getting to the new hardware.

Apple has often seemed reluctant to get serious about AI. I know they’ve been working on it, and I’ve written before about why their approach could work. But there’s a limit to how long I can be excited about what Siri might eventually do. At some point, I need it to do the thing.

If we start doing more of our computing by asking an assistant to do work for us, whoever makes that assistant will have a lot of influence over how we use our devices. If I spend my day working through somebody else’s AI, Apple still gets to sell me a phone. But somebody else is deciding how much of that phone I use and which services I reach for.

I don’t think Apple wants that future.

Ternus’s argument gives Apple a different path. Make the intelligence built into the phone useful enough that it’s the one we reach for. Give it the context it needs, while letting us control what it can access. And make it work across the devices and apps we already use.

If he follows through, I’d expect more attention to what Apple silicon can run locally. I’d also expect Apple to keep building out Private Cloud Compute. Those are the parts of the plan where Apple controls the hardware and can keep improving it.

Siri is the harder test. I’m on the betas and the new Siri AI is light-years ahead of the old Siri. But it’s still unclear how far Apple is willing to take this. If they want Siri to become the brain of our private contextual AI assistant, they need to keep the gas down. They also need developer buy-in. Apps need to plug into it.

I’m speculating about where Ternus takes this. An opening speech doesn’t tell us how he’ll assign people or spend money, and Apple has given us plenty of reasons to be skeptical of AI promises.

I liked hearing Ternus explain where he thinks Apple belongs. Now I’d like to be able to ask my iPhone to do something complicated and trust it to finish the job.

The post The Ternus Doctrine appeared first on MacSparky.

There is a lot to process after this week’s Apple event. If you’re still sorting through it all, I found two videos worth your time.

First is Marques Brownlee’s iPhone 18 Pro/Duo Impressions: Mogged. Marques has a good feel for this stuff, and I always value his initial reactions. I don’t agree with him about the Apple Watch recording feature. He lands closer to the creepy side of that debate. I don’t think it is nearly as troubling as some people are making it out to be, although we’ll know more once people start using it in the wild.

The second is Tyler Stalman’s iPhone 18 Pro & Duo: A Photographer’s Reaction. Tyler set me straight on the variable aperture. The mechanism isn’t there to create more bokeh. At its widest setting, the lens is already as open as it gets. The clever bit is that Apple can put a faster lens in the phone, then stop it down when conditions call for less light or more depth of field.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt-fS0DH8BQ

That makes the variable aperture less of a single flashy feature and more of a tool that lets Apple build a more flexible camera. Either way, if you like taking pictures with your phone, I think the iPhone 18 Pro is going to be a really nice upgrade.

The post Two Apple Event Videos Worth Watching appeared first on MacSparky.

It was a momentous week with the iPhone announcement. I’ve got a lot on my mind.

Below you’ll find the week’s new videos and podcasts, a few of the conversations happening in the member community, and what’s coming next week. Most of those links lead straight into the Labs community on Circle, so they’ll only open if you’re a member. If you’re a Labs member who hasn’t set up your Circle access yet, send me a note and I’ll get you in. For members, this is your week at a glance. If you’re not one yet, it’s a peek at what you’re missing.

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The Week’s Releases

Touring the Endor Fieldbook

Video · September 8 · all tiers

I built myself a native Mac app with an audience of one. Endor Fieldbook reads the same Markdown files as my Obsidian vault, then puts my calendar, tasks, content, research, and finances into an interface made just for me.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

Labs iPhone Event Meetup

Meetup · September 9 · all tiers

We watched the September event together in the Labs chat room, then got on Zoom at noon to compare notes on the iPhone 18 Pro and the Duo. The recording is already published in the Labs Circle and podcast feeds.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

Labs September Meetup (After Dark)

Meetup · September 10 · Pathfinder & Insider

This month’s After Dark meetup ran Thursday evening at 6:00 Pacific, the late slot for members who cannot make a noon session. Recording to follow.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link

The Lab Report for September 11, 2026

Podcast · September 11 · all tiers

Apple’s September event takes over this week’s Lab Report. I look at the iPhone 18 Pro camera, explain why I’m buying an iPhone Duo, and work through the tradeoffs between Apple’s two new phones.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

In the Community

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (Labs Discussion Board)

A member visited the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles during a preview and came back recommending it, with the Geffen nearby as a second stop.

iPhone Duo (Labs Discussion Board)

A member posted a picture of the rumored dual-screen iPhone, and the comments turned into a run of jokes about its resemblance to a discontinued Microsoft Duo.

Best Way to Access Mac from iPad? (Labs Discussion Board)

One member asked how to reach a MacBook Pro back home while traveling with only an iPad, and the replies covered several remote-access options.

If you’re a Labs member and haven’t joined the Circle community yet, let me know and I’ll get you set up.

Coming Up

The event is behind us, so here is what the Labs calendar looks like through the middle of October.

September Deep Dive – The Mac Studio Home Server · September 17, 12:00 Pacific

Pathfinder Link

Labs Jam Session – Browsers · September 24, 12:00 Pacific

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

Q4 Quarter Planning Meetup · October 1, 10:00 Pacific

Pathfinder Link

Labs October Meetup · October 8, 14:00 Pacific

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link

October Deep Dive – Local and Private AI on a Mac · October 15, 12:00 Pacific

Pathfinder Link

Links of Interest

• iPhone 18 Pro/Duo Impressions: Mogged. Marques Brownlee shares his first impressions after hands-on time with both new iPhones.
• iPhone Duo hands-on. The Verge takes an early look at Apple’s first foldable iPhone.
• Is the Foldable iPhone Duo Worth $1,999?. Joanna Stern looks at the first-generation hardware and asks the obvious price question.
• Apple reportedly cancels two MacBooks and reshuffles its OLED roadmap. MacRumors on the display roadmap that says a foldable MacBook and a large-OLED MacBook Pro tier are both off the table.
• Apple hit with a $2.7 billion lawsuit over App Tracking Transparency. The UK claim argues Apple held other developers to stricter tracking rules than its own advertising business.
• Claude, ChatGPT, and Grok all went down at once. Worth reading if you have moved a daily workflow onto a single cloud AI service.

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Join the Labs

The videos, podcasts, and live sessions above are inside MacSparky Labs. Join at macsparky.com/join.

The post This Week in the Labs — September 11, 2026 appeared first on MacSparky.

A controversy around OpenAI’s latest math proof raises a fear that might become increasingly common: that A.I. tools could take valuable insights from one user and hand them to another.

The four-year agreement will cover rice farms across three Indian states, reaching about 100,000 hectares at peak delivery.

A Apple publicou uma série de vídeos no portal Apple Developer e no YouTube destinada a ajudar os desenvolvedores a preparar seus aplicativos para o iPhone Duo.

Isso porque, a princípio, haverá muitos apps que não aproveitarão o novo tamanho de tela caso sejam antigos ou se os desenvolvedores tiverem optado por não seguir as diretrizes da Apple.

Na prática, as versões atuais dos aplicativos serão exibidas em tela cheia na parte frontal e em tela quase cheia na tela interna. No primeiro vídeo publicado pela empresa, por exemplo, ela demonstra que os aplicativos serão alinhados à esquerda para ocupar a maior parte da tela, evitando a área da câmera.

Eis os demais vídeos compartilhados pela empresa:

Ao recompilarem seus aplicativos usando o Xcode 27.1, que será disponibilizado ainda neste mês, os desenvolvedores passarão a contar com controles mais precisos. Seus aplicativos poderão aproveitar toda a largura da tela interna, além de incluir um módulo de pré-visualização que exibe como os apps ficarão nos quatro layouts — fechado em modo retrato, fechado em modo paisagem, aberto na horizontal (paisagem) e aberto na vertical (retrato).

Além de detalhar a adaptação de apps para o iPhone Duo, a Apple também disponibilizou os recursos visuais do dispositivo em seu portal Apple Design Resources, com assets dos novos dispositivos para Photoshop e em formato PNG.

Por fim, a empresa realizará os chamados iPhone Duo Group Labs, laboratórios que permitem aos desenvolvedores se juntar aos engenheiros e designers da Apple — de forma online — para fazer perguntas e obter orientações.

via 9to5Mac

Apple today announced the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Duo, AirPods 5, and new Apple Watches. Here are a few initial thoughts.

The Event

• John Ternus looked comfortable during his first product event as Apple CEO. And he got to introduce “one more thing” straight out of the gate.
• Apple has these video events down. They move fast and look beautiful. I still miss the tension of a live room. Million-dollar executives should have to sweat once in a while.
• There was a lot of “later this year” today. Some of that is understandable with an entirely new iPhone platform. I also expect they’ve had their hands full with Siri AI.
• Apple’s larger pitch was the iPhone as an “intelligent personal hub.” The iPhone does the thinking, the Watch senses what is happening, and the AirPods handle private input and output. I like that they are getting a bigger picture story around AI.
• Also, they said AI.

iPhone 18 Pro

• The new camera system is the selling point. A mechanical aperture that moves from f/1.48 to f/4 gives photographers real control over light and depth of field. Apple is also bringing aperture, shutter speed, white balance, and a histogram into its own Camera app. Third-party camera apps just lost some territory.
• Apple Reference Image may prove more important than it first appears. The idea is to make a signed record of what the sensor saw at the moment of capture. With synthetic images getting better every month, establishing the origin of a photograph is going to matter.
• Apple spent a surprising amount of time talking about cooling. That makes sense. Heat has become one of the main limits on phone performance. I’ll be curious to see how much difference the new vapor chamber makes. My theory is that Apple has a specific heat ceiling. Better thermal control gives it room to run the chip faster before reaching that ceiling.
• There is no regular iPhone 18 this fall. Apple’s least expensive new iPhone starts at $1,199. I am curious how that goes over once these phones move beyond the enthusiasts.

iPhone Duo

• Well, they got me.
• The hardware is impressive, but the software sold the device. The way apps move between displays, the new dock, the two-app layouts, and all the partially folded positions make this feel like a new kind of iPhone. It does not look like Apple took iPadOS and folded it in half.
• I’ve been calling this an iPad mini in your pocket, and that still feels right. When I travel, I often leave the laptop in my bag and write on an iPad mini with a folding keyboard. The Duo could give me that setup without carrying the iPad.
• The hard choice is the camera. If you want the best camera that you will actually carry, get the iPhone 18 Pro. The Duo gives up the Pro’s variable aperture and telephoto reach.
• There are plenty of other compromises. No Face ID. A smaller outer screen. A hinge with more than 100 parts. First-generation hardware that starts at $1,999. This thing screams AppleCare.
• I’m going to buy one. I will keep an eye on the return window, but I suspect it is staying. At this point I would probably say anything to justify getting a Duo, so discount my advice accordingly.

Apple Watch

• I started the day with an Ultra 3 and no good reason to replace it. Then Apple announced the new health sensors and Live Rewind. So much for discipline.
• Live Rewind is the Watch feature I care about most. My hearing isn’t so great. Asking someone to repeat themselves once is fine. Asking two or three times gets awkward. The ability to look down and read the last 15 seconds could be genuinely useful to me.
• That feature also deserves scrutiny. Apple says the audio is handled on the device and deleted, with a chime and full-screen notice when Live Rewind runs. I want to understand how it works around other people before deciding how often I would use it.
• The Apple Watch story has changed a lot. It began as a device for notifications and small apps. Apple now talks about it primarily as a health sensor on your wrist.

AirPods 5

• The $129 AirPods 5 look like the easy recommendation. Active noise cancellation is now standard, and people who dislike silicone ear tips get more of the AirPods Pro experience in an open-ear design.
• Apple did not make a strong case for the $149 version. Wireless charging, a volume gesture, and some additional battery life are nice. I am not sure they are worth the extra $20 for most people.
• I wonder why there are two tiers to this product. That $129 price point must be particularly effective for Apple.

What Did Not Show Up

• No new Apple TV. No HomePod mini. No screen-based HomePod device. None of those products belonged in an iPhone-focused event. I suspect we’ll see them all soon.

I am still inside the reality distortion field, so check back after these products ship. But yes, I am ordering the Duo.

The post A Few Thoughts Following Apple’s September 2026 iPhone Event appeared first on MacSparky.

Their warnings echo concerns that other artificial intelligence experts have voiced in recent months, as calls increase for a slowdown in the pace of development.

On this episode of Intentional AI, Chris and I look at how dictation went from a nine-thousand-dollar tool that needed hours of training to something you can whisper into your watch. We compare cloud and local options, including Wispr Flow, MacWhisper, Superwhisper, and Whisper Memos, along with the privacy tradeoffs that come with each.

We also talk about using your voice to give robots better context, then wrap up with Claude’s new browser and background computer use.

This episode of Intentional AI is sponsored by:

• Making Light: Craft a daily ritual to focus on what matters most. Get $10 off your first order with the code ‘INTENTIONAL26’

The post Intentional AI 8: Whisper to Write appeared first on MacSparky.

OpenAI announced today that it had solved the problem, one of seven “Millennium Problems” seen as among the most important in higher mathematics.

The company’s announcement is the most dramatic sign yet that artificial intelligence is fundamentally transforming the field of higher mathematics.