Category: Apple Insider

On this week’s episode of the Smart Home Insider podcast, we talk about security systems, and how they can integrate with other devices to protect your home and family.

Joining as guest host for this security episode is Jimmy Lin, Vice President of Product Management at ADT. We dive into what’s new with ADT as well as security systems and Matter in the latter half of the episode.

First, we talk through the news. Bose has a new lifestyle collection of smart speakers, complete with AirPlay support and sleek, upscale designs.

Govee has two new releases to check out, starting with the Govee TV Backlight 3. This uses an updated hybrid lens camera to synchronize what is on-screen with a light strip positioned around your television.

Then the firm has also released a new G25 filament-style bulb. The bulb has a cool double-helix filament in the center that is able to do different colors, and not just tunable hues of white.

Moving into security, guest Jimmy Lin talks through new releases from ADT, such as its innovative Live Light smart sign to help first responders find your home and its DIY Blu system.

We start to talk more broadly then, such as how security devices can do more than just protect your home. Lin discusses various scenarios such as identifying anomalies in your home, like if a cupboard door doesn’t open or someone doesn’t arrive home at an expected time.

Of course, we couldn’t end this interview without getting into Matter. Currently, ADT still doesn’t support Matter and we get into the weeds on whether or not it needs to and what users should look for now.

Links from the Smart Home Insider podcast

Those interested in sponsoring the show can reach out to us at [email protected]

Keep up with everything Apple in the weekly AppleInsider Podcast. Just say, “Hey, Siri,” to your HomePod mini and ask it, and our latest Smart Home Insider episode too. If you want an ad-free main AppleInsider Podcast experience, you can support the AppleInsider podcast by subscribing for $5 per month through Apple’s Podcasts app, or via Patreon if you prefer any other podcast player.

Apple will be adding support for Google Cast and other alternatives to AirPlay as part of iOS 27, in order to appease the EU’s Digital Markets Act.

The Digital Markets Act is viewed by Apple as a problem, due to a lack of clarity about regulatory requirements and their effects. While this has so far meant the blocking of some features from reaching the continent, Apple is meeting halfway by abiding by some elements.

One of those will apparently be a change to iOS 27 for connecting to other devices. While Apple already has AirPlay for that, it will be moving to add more support for other solutions.

Sources told Mark Gurman that third-party streaming support is on the way, according to his “Power On” newsletter for Bloomberg on Sunday. This would chiefly include supporting Google Cast, the Android-centric alternative.

Users will be able to set AirPlay or another framework as the default way of beaming content between devices.

It isn’t made clear whether the third-party solutions would be available as a global option or just for users in the EU. Apple hasn’t been consistent with how it implements such regulatory-based features, like with alternative app stores in the EU versus emulators being available everywhere.

There will be more changes on the way for iOS 27 to appease more EU demands, too. This apparently involves third-party app storefront support as well as sideloading.

Giving a digital inch

Apple’s compliance with the DMA with iOS 27 changes are inevitable, despite Apple’s defiance on the matter. Apple has been concerned about being pushed to comply, especially when dealing with the inherent security risks of opening up access.

The dislike of DMA and the EU’s push to comply has already led to various features not being available to European users.

This includes macOS Tahoe‘s Live Activities, mirroring those from the user’s iPhone. There’s also iPhone mirroring, a feature that displays the iPhone display on a Mac‘s screen, which has been absent since 2024.

While the iOS 27 changes won’t necessarily include already-blocked elements, it is a step on the long road for Apple to do so.

The $20B search engine preference deal with Apple was “fair and square,” Google insists in its antitrust appeal against the Department of Justice.

In August 2024, a court ruled that Google was a monopolist in the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet. One that involved an investigation into Google’s $20 billion deal with Apple to make Google the preferred search engine of Safari.

On May 22, Google filed its appeal against federal rulings that it held illegal monopolies in search and advertising.

The filing posted by Reuters covers many areas, including that Judge Amit Mehta made legal errors in his 2024 ruling. Google doesn’t believe that it had illegally blocked competitors with its search deal, but really, it’s because Apple chose it.

In the filing, Google claims that, whether the court believes Google has monopoly power or not, it “did nothing” to harm competition. Google didn’t block rivals to make their own offers, and it didn’t block Apple from choosing a better one either.

There is no evidence that Google’s customers would have chosen a rival, even if those agreements didn’t exist, it continues.

It even pointed to Apple’s conclusion that the Microsoft rival Bing was “inferior” and “horrible at monetizing advertising,”

“Google just prevailed in the marketplace fair and square,” it declares.

Apple could’ve promoted other engines, the filing explains, and that Safari also does list alternative options within its settings. Ultimately, Google says that the court interpreted there to be “exclusivity” when really it was for “sound business reasons” on Apple’s part.

Aiming for a reversal

While Google has managed to escape major injury from the lawsuit, it still has some duties to take care of.

The later ruling was in September 2025, when it was decided that Google didn’t have to sell off Android or Chrome. It was also permitted to continue its $20 billion search deal with Apple.

However, it was decided that Google had to share search data with its competitors.

The appeal is an attempt to go back on this and other remedies that Google was ordered to carry out. Reversing the ruling wouldn’t affect things like the Apple search deal, but it would stop the data-sharing requirement entirely.

A section of the appeal discusses how this applies to rival companies that, to Google, shouldn’t be classed as such. Specifically, companies that deal strictly with AI.

To Google, it has to share data with firms like OpenAI, which is behind ChatGPT, which doesn’t offer its own general search engine. They provide answers that reference what would normally be search results.

Google argues that it is wrong to be forced to supply data to OpenAI as a rival. Generative AI products didn’t really exist in a substantial way at the time, so the court couldn’t incorporate ChatGPT and others as rivals when considering its ruling.

AI companies are already massively succeeding, without any need to “free-ride on Google’s success,” it proposes. As such, Google believes that the data-sharing remedies shouldn’t apply to AI companies that don’t offer a general search engine.

At the time of publication, the court has not responded nor scheduled any further courtroom activity. Based on typical scheduling patterns, the case could continue in late 2026, or even in 2027.

The union representing staff at Apple Towson Town Center has announced a public rally for May 27, 2026, protesting against Apple’s treatment of its workers.

Apple Towson is not the only store that Apple has decided to close, but it is the only unionized one. It was the first Apple Store to unionize, and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Union claims that its members are being discriminated against because of this.

Known as the Machinists’ Union for short, it has now announced a public protest.

“[Elected] officials, “labor allies, and community leaders will hold a #DoRightApple public solidarity rally on Wednesday, May 27,” says the union, “to demand accountability from Apple and support for the nearly 90 IAM Local 4538 members facing job loss.”

Apple has said that it is closing this store, and two others in June 2026, because of changes in the shopping malls where they are based.

“Following the departure of several retailers and declining conditions at Trumbull Mall, the Shops at North County, and Towson Town Center,” said Apple when the closures were announced, “we’ve made the difficult decision to close our stores at these locations.”

Local council members have objected to Apple’s decision to close the store. But the Machinists’ Union is calling out Apple over how it is treating its members differently from staff in the non-unionized stores.

Specifically, Apple has said that staff from those stores can continue in their jobs at other Apple Store locations. For the Towson store, it says those staff are “eligible to apply for open roles at Apple in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement.”

That agreement is the one established between Apple and the union. However, the Machinists’ Union claims that there is no clause in it which would prohibit Apple from relocating its staff.

The Machinists’ Union has previously filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against Apple with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB has previously been successful in accusing Apple of illegal union-busting activities.

This public protest rally on May 27 will start at 11 a.m. Eastern at Patriot Plaza, 400 E. Washington Ave., Towson, Md., just over half a mile away from the store. It will be streamed live on the Machinists’ Union’s Facebook page.

Amazon’s $200 discount delivers the lowest price ever on the 2026 15-inch MacBook Air with Apple’s M5 chip.

Amazon’s early Memorial Day deal knocks $200 off the standard M5 MacBook Air 15-inch laptop in your choice of Starlight or Sky Blue.

Buy 15″ MacBook Air M5 for $1,099.99

This deal delivers the lowest price we’ve seen on the new 15-inch MacBook Air that was released in March 2026. Equipped with Apple’s M5 chip with a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, the standard configuration also has 16GB of unified memory and 512GB of storage.

In our hands-on M5 MacBook Air review, we found that although the 2026 release is an incremental update, it’s still an excellent buy for most.

And for those wanting the extra screen real estate found in the 15-inch model, picking it up at the lowest price ever is always a plus.

If you’re looking for additional power and a larger port selection, Amazon is also knocking $250 off every 2026 16-inch MacBook Pro configuration it sells. You can read more about the sale in our deal article.

Apple isn’t doing a good job shaking the accusations of abandoning the Apple Vision Pro platform when you observe how it handles sharing information about exclusive content like Immersive Video.

I’m an Apple Vision Pro enthusiast that sees a lot of potential in the platform. It’s still a main device in my workflow that I like to visit multiple times a week to get some focused writing done.

However, it isn’t surprising in the least that Apple randomly dropped a trailer for its next Immersive Video on Wednesday morning in 2D on YouTube. It isn’t on a subject I’m particularly interested in, but it is one of very few videos shot in this format for the very expensive platform.

I own an Apple Vision Pro, I use it regularly, and yet I have no idea how I’d know about this new Immersive Video unless I followed a website like AppleInsider or Apple’s channel on YouTube.

It isn’t mentioned on the Apple TV press page, Apple’s Newsroom, in Apple’s proprietary Spatial Gallery app, or in the Apple TV app. I can’t even watch the trailer in Apple Vision Pro in an immersive format, at least not at the time of publication.

But full Immersive Video is launching on May 20. It’s beside the point, but a short film called “Real Madrid: The Weight of Greatness.”

It’s a fine trailer and makes me want to watch it, even if I don’t care about the team or the sport. I’m just aware that sports are one of the properties that fell perfectly for Apple Vision Pro.

Sure, it would be nice to see the trailer on the platform that the media is coming to.

Exemplifying the Apple Vision Pro problem

Look, I get it. Apple does this kind of thing with a lot of its media. Shows just appear on Apple TV seemingly out of the blue, especially children’s content.

Apple doesn’t do much in terms of promoting its original content as it is. But it does promote it.

YouTube and Apple’s social media presence on X, Instagram, and elsewhere get a constant barrage of clips from Apple TV shows. Spatial Gallery does get clips and behind-the-scenes features as well.

The new Immersive Video for that Real Madrid story will drop on May 20, and it’ll be heavily featured in the Apple TV app. I just find it odd that the little advertising Apple is doing is on platforms outside of Apple Vision Pro.

In part, this makes sense. The people that already own Apple Vision Pro will eventually come across it and watch it if they’re interested.

The YouTube trailer has a link to set up a try-on appointment for Apple Vision Pro. It’s clearly a way to say, “You like Real Madrid? Come try this headset.”

But like with Apple Card promotions, Apple seems to forget that it should offer benefits to existing users. Apple Vision Pro needs support if it will ever flourish as a platform.

While the developer problem is the crux of Apple Vision Pro and visionOS woes, it’s only a part of them. Apple’s support and advertisements around its own platform are crucial.

Apple doesn’t even share Apple Vision Pro ads, let alone heavily promote what the device does or can do. There are some half-step efforts, like letting users browse available Apple Vision Pro apps in the App Store on iPhone, but it’s not enough.

Yes, this is a story about a trailer for an Immersive Video that will likely only be watched by dozens of people. But that in itself is emblematic of Apple’s challenges it faces with getting visionOS off the ground.

At some point, effort will be needed. If not with this first iteration (and M5 upgrade), then perhaps Apple has moved on, for now.

No, not abandoned the platform per se — we’re still getting visionOS 27 at WWDC 2026. But unless Apple starts showing some effort, Apple Vision Pro will remain in an awkward holding pattern until the next hardware iteration.

Given current rumors, new hardware may not arrive until 2028 or later. While this ad is a perfect example of where Apple Vision Pro stands today, I hope that WWDC can be an example of Apple’s renewed effort for the platform.

The self-hosted movie and TV show streaming platform Plex has jacked up the cost of its lifetime pass 200% to $749.99. It’s an insane move that will make users think twice about using the app.

For years, people with extensive digital home libraries of content have relied on Plex to create their own private in-house Netflix. However, after a change to how it is priced, some users may decide to look elsewhere.

The Lifetime Plex Pass is for users who want to use Plex to stream to their iPhone and Apple TV, but without paying a monthly or annual fee. However, while it was previously a hefty $249.99 charge in the United States, it is being increased considerably.

From July 1, Plex is increasing the Lifetime Plex Pass price to $749.99. That’s three times as much as it had cost previously.

Plex is giving users until 12:01 a.m. UTC on July 1, 2026, to buy the lifetime version of the Plex Pass under the current $249.99 pricing, before migrating to the new, and borderline insane, price.

Existing Lifetime Plex Pass holders will be able to use their pass without any extra charges. Monthly and annual subscription pricing and Remote Watch Pass will also remain unchanged for the moment, as it only affects new Lifetime Plex Pass purchases.

In justifying the increase, Plex admits that it had considered removing the Lifetime Plex Pass as recurring subscriptions sustain long-term development. The new price “reflects the real, ongoing value of the software we’re committed to building and maintaining for years to come.

Sure. Let’s go with that.

Too expensive, by far

Service hike prices over time, and it’s expected by consumers. However, here, the math is hugely disproportionate to what you get.

At present, the Plex Pass is $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year. That means the Lifetime Plex Pass is the equivalent of over ten years of the Plex Pass under the annual plan.

Ten years is a long time for software. For those who elect to pay a decade’s usage in advance, there’s no guarantee that Plex will still be around in a useful state by then.

There’s also no real benefit to paying $750 versus $250 here. Though Plex has a roadmap of changes on the horizon, they will apply to all paid users, regardless of level.

While a consumer may think twice about paying $250 for the lifetime pass as-is, there won’t be such a debate for the new price. That $500 price difference would be better spent on other things, like an iPad mini or almost all of the sticker price of a MacBook Neo.

Consumers wanting a media library streaming tool without the outlay may have been tempted by Jellyfin in the past. With such a severe price increase on the way, there’s more of an incentive to look at alternatives to Plex.

Price increases are a normal part of software development and sales. But when it’s a platform that deals with the content you already paid for once, it’s an increase that is simply too high to be taken seriously by anyone but diehard users.

Those people will almost certainly have bought the $250 version already.

We’re working on a comprehensive guide for Jellyfin. Maybe wait for that, if you’re looking at it now.

Sources within the supply chain back up previous reports that the forthcoming Apple Watch Ultra 4 will be a significant update that includes doubling its number of sensors.

Following reports that the regular Apple Watch Series 12 will not be a major update, there are now reports that the Apple Watch Ultra 4 will be. According to Digitimes, the new model will have a visible redesign that includes the addition of further unspecified sensors.

This fits with what the same publication said in August 2025, where it specifically said that the Apple Watch would double its number of sensors.

Neither report describes what those sensors are, but they will presumably be health-related. What this new report does say is that the update is a big deal for the Taiwan-Asia Semiconductor Corporation (TASC) firm, which makes the sensors.

It’s estimated that the new sensors and a redesign will lead the Apple Watch Ultra 4 to getting up to 30% more orders than its predecessor.

Apple has long worked with TASC, including on attempts to add glucose monitoring to the Apple Watch. Apple has been working to add this to all models of the Apple Watch, but the new report appears to be specifically and only about the Apple Watch Ultra.

If the claims are correct, this will mark the first major redesign of the Apple Watch Ultra since its original launch in 2022. A second generation did follow in 2023, which added a brighter screen.

For 2024, Apple made no changes to the Apple Watch Ultra, except for releasing it in black as well as silver. The 2025 Apple Watch Ultra 3 was also a minor update, except that it added 5G support.

Apple is most likely to announce the Apple Watch Ultra 4 at its iPhone event in September 2026. The new report says that TASC is expecting major orders from July, which approximately fits the schedule for final Watches to be ready in September.

Apple will relaunch Apple Intelligence and Siri platforms with new Apple Foundation Models. Despite Google’s involvement, Apple will maintain its privacy stance.

When Apple Intelligence was revealed during WWDC 2024, Apple had a hybrid system in place that would ultimately fail to deliver. Delays ensued, and it seems that the long wait is over for Apple’s true AI strategy to emerge.

According to the Power On newsletter, Apple won’t be compromising on privacy with its new AI efforts. While the report is colored with suppositions and conjecture about what is coming, it lays out a fairly clear picture.

Apple will not be compromising on privacy for the sake of better artificial intelligence.

There aren’t any new details about Apple’s AI efforts. It repeats everything we know about the upcoming strategy and paints a picture of loss, shortcomings, and desperation on Apple’s part.

Of course, I don’t see it in quite the same light.

Apple’s place in the AI race

The AI industry lurched ahead of Apple with increasingly powerful models that could perform seemingly amazing tasks. The demos have always been something spectacular, like out of science fiction, but the real-world use has been something a little more mundane.

People have become upset that their sacrifice of the world’s knowledge and data has led to very little. Some AI is great and accelerates human workflows, but the cost to our financial markets, component availability, and environment has been incredible.

Apple has missed out on the hype cycle around AI, but has thrived in spite of it. It keeps having record quarterly results without any significant updates to its AI systems, which contradicts the grifts being sold to investors.

Apple doesn’t need AI, but AI needs Apple.

With ChatGPT set to become cash-poor by 2028 without an influx of cash and the general public becoming increasingly angry at AI companies, Apple’s position couldn’t be stronger. It isn’t one of desperation and failure, but one of success due to patience.

I’m not saying that Apple wouldn’t have been happy to see its initial launch go more smoothly. Nor am I saying Apple wouldn’t have released upgraded AI sooner if it could have.

It all just seems to be a happy accident. But instead of wallowing in self-pity, Apple is doing what it does best.

Apple is about to bust into the industry late with a solution that actually meets people where they are.

Apple’s privacy stance will hold

Expect WWDC 2026 to reveal a lot of what Apple hopes to accomplish through the following year with AI. However, it won’t reveal everything, like explicit details about working with Google Gemini.

Apple partnered with Google to get a version of Gemini that could run on Private Cloud Compute servers. No, it isn’t replacing Apple Foundation Models with Gemini no matter how often it is repeated, but being used to distill knowledge and train.

There are also rumors of Apple renting AI compute space from Google, which is likely given the state of the market. However, users don’t need to worry that Apple is sending data to Google servers.

Whatever servers and GPU clusters Apple uses, they will be operated no differently than Private Cloud Compute with data privacy protections in place. It is no different than Apple renting data servers from Google or Amazon for iCloud.

Those companies don’t have access to the data. Period.

Apple’s AI strategy

Anyway, the new Apple Foundation Models will be the central backbone of Apple’s new AI strategy. They will run both on-device and in Private Cloud Compute to parse data and complete tasks on behalf of the user.

Most users will likely interact with Apple’s AI systems and Siri using these base models and nothing else. It will be the default, and after the Gemini training, will likely be more than enough for the features Apple will reveal during WWDC.

Anyone who wants to ignore AI on Apple platforms will be able to do so.

For those who want other options, Apple is providing developers with an API. The OpenAI relationship is fraying, and Apple will likely boot them from their privileged positions with iOS 27.

Instead, apps like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude will be able to be installed from the App Store and become endpoints for Apple Foundation Models. That means whether you’re invoking Siri or general Apple Intelligence programs, you can send data to third-party AI for parsing and execution.

Such integrations will maintain user privacy through the use of the API. Apple will likely establish that developers must adhere to strict privacy rules to access the API or face being revoked from access.

If Apple doesn’t go that route, then at the least, Apple will warn users of the privacy risks of using third-party models.

The end result is a new set of (hopefully) capable Apple Foundation Models powering every AI interaction on iPhone with privacy and security intact. Users will also be able to tap into their favorite, arguably more capable, AI models as they need or want to.

Apple won’t need to be the best in the AI space. Instead, it will have a strong enough base offering with the option of supporting external AI models as an expansion of its ecosystem.

Sure, Apple is late in doing this, but coloring it as some kind of desperate move seems odd. It’s Apple doing what Apple does best, and that’s disrupting an established market with a better business model targeted at user needs above profits and grift.

Apple will own the AI ecosystem by playing host to every model on its powerful hardware while offering good-enough models on-device.

WWDC 2026 will begin on June 8 with a keynote address. Expect it to be an AI-focused event considering the amount that will need to be covered in the space.

Apple software chief Craig Federighi will be taking part in xAI’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI over Grok’s treatment in the App Store, but Tim Cook seemingly won’t be.

In August 2025, Elon Musk’s xAI sued Apple and OpenAI, claiming that a partnership between the two affected Grok’s standings in the App Store. Specifically, Musk’s xAI accused Apple of bias in its App Store rankings, preventing Grok and X from getting the top spot in favor of ChatGPT.

As the antitrust lawsuit rolls on, it has now brought Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi into the matter.

In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on May 13, spotted by 9to5Mac, X Corp and xAI attempted to make Craig Federighi and CEO Tim Cook custodians. This refers to parties who are most likely to have pertinent information or sufficient access to details for the lawsuit to proceed.

The argument was that both Cook and Federighi had made “high-level, strategic decisions about the Apple-OpenAI Agreement,” the filing states.

The court granted that Federighi should be a custodian, and that the plaintiffs successfully argued he may have “unique relevant evidence.” This includes information relating to Apple’s integration of OpenAI services into Apple Intelligence, because the SVP was almost certainly a key decision maker.

However, while there is an attempt to make Cook a custodian too, the court rejects this. The court says there’s no explanation for how Cook would have any unique relevant evidence that hasn’t already been produced, nor that Federighi would be able to provide.

Following this designation, Federighi has to provide responsive discoverable documents by June 17, 2026.

Employee rules, consumer use

While xAI was partially successful in its demands, it certainly wasn’t in others.

Late in the filing, the court explains it was asked by xAI to force Apple to produce all documents about internal policies concerning employee usage of generative AI and chatbots.

However, the court disputes the need for this, since it is unclear how Apple’s internal policies relating to employee AI usage would relate to the antitrust claims. Employee AI usage doesn’t directly impact App Store rankings, the court proposes.

The reasoning from xAI was that Apple touted the safety of OpenAI’s products, but was concerned enough to impose limits and rules on how employees used them. The court disagrees because Apple’s imposition of guardrails on employee usage doesn’t mean Apple is “misrepresenting” the safety and privacy of programs to the public.

As such, the court denied the document demand.

Not all demands were from xAI either. OpenAI moved to require Musk to present emails at Tesla and SpaceX, as well as other communications, by June 3.

That demand was granted by the court.