LOS ANGELES—For about five minutes on an extremely crowded showroom floor, I got to take pictures of the new MacBook Pro and test out some of its new features. First impressions: It's not as much of a departure from the previous design as I expected, but the outstanding OLED display steals the show regardless.

The first thing I noticed was that it's lighter. My daily driver is a 14-inch MacBook Pro (M1 Max), and it's a bit weighty for a 14-incher. Picking up the new model, I could immediately tell it was lighter. It's not like it's in a different general weight class, but it's a noticeable difference.

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LOS ANGELES—Apple today announced and gave a first glimpse of its first major MacBook Pro redesign in more than five years. As rumored, it includes an OLED display and, for the first time on macOS, a touchscreen—a change Apple has long debated. (Former CEO Steve Jobs famously was opposed.)

Apple's demonstration video showed users interacting with applications by reaching up to touch the screen, including file dragging and multi-touch gestures like pinch-to-zoom. It does not appear to be a 2-in-1 convertible design, though; all the footage was of people reaching up to touch the screen in a normal laptop configuration.

The OLED display (which Apple is, of course, calling the PROLED XDR) seems to be the real highlight here, compared to earlier models: It can achieve 2,000 nits in terms of maximum brightness, and Apple says it has a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio. References were made to burn-in protection, but details on which approach it's taking for that weren't yet shared. The display retains the 120 Hz variable refresh rate of its predecessors.

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Apple has announced refreshes for the iMac and the entry-level, 14-inch MacBook Pro. Both machines are getting the M6 chip, which was introduced in the Mac mini several weeks ago.

The M6 is split into two variants for the iMac. Picking the "M6 chip with two Thunderbolt ports" option gets you a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU, whereas picking "M6 chip with four Thunderbolt ports" gets you 12 cores for each, instead. The two-port variant maxes out at 24 GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, whereas the four-port one maxes out at 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage.

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I understand the appeal of foldable phones—they let manufacturers keep expanding screen sizes while still producing devices that can reasonably fit in a pocket. In practice, though, every foldable Android phone I've seen in public has had a ridiculously visible seam between the two halves of the screen, often with what looks like delamination from the underlying surface, giving the display an ugly, bubbly appearance.

Back when Android phones began shipping with bigger and bigger screens and the iPhone was stuck at a miserly four inches, I was jealous. But I've never looked at anyone using a chunky, fragile-looking foldable phone in public and pined for Apple's take on the idea.

Nevertheless, that take has arrived, in the form of the iPhone Duo. This $1,999-and-up foldable is the biggest change to the iPhone in years, with both hardware and software updates that dramatically change how you interact with the device.

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Today, Apple rolled out the 27.2 updates for its operating systems, including iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, visionOS, and so on.

Let's start with iOS 27.2. This update is heavily focused on Siri AI. It adds a memory feature to Siri, so it can "recall your past conversations" and reference them when chatting with you. It also expands what data sources Siri can access when giving responses to include voicemails, Messages attachments, and more.

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The iPhone Duo may be a bit of a risk right now, but there's a new mid-size Apple touchscreen device that might do the job. Starting at $699, the 8th-gen iPad mini price has gone up, but there are some big changes. Apple says the refreshed 8th-gen iPad mini marks the most significant update ever for its petite tablet, featuring an OLED screen and the A20 Pro chip that we first saw in the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo.

The new iPad mini has roughly the same footprint as the 2024 release, but the display is slightly larger thanks to a 24 percent reduction in bezel thickness. The device is almost a full millimeter thinner than the last iPad, coming in at just 5.4 mm. The chassis is also IP67 rated for water and dust protection. The 7th-Gen iPad mini didn't have any official IP rating.

The 8.5-inch Super Retina XDR display (up from 8.3 inches) moves on from the IPS technology of the last-gen device to adopt OLED. That means dapper blacks and a much higher peak brightness—1,200 nits versus just 500 nits for the previous mini. It can also manage 1-nit minimum brightness so as not to sear your retinas in a dark room. There will also be a nano-textured matte display option. The display experience on the new mini should be much more in line with what we've come to expect from Apple's Pro-level devices.

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The iPhone Duo launched last week, offering anyone willing to spend $2,000 a chance to experience Apple's first foldable phone. For some early buyers, the morning after isn't going great. Despite the company's big talk about its "precision-engineered" hinge, some devices appear to have a hardware flaw that destroys the device's impressive internal display within hours (or minutes) of use.

The Internet is currently overflowing with images of busted iPhone Duos, all sporting almost identical damage. The OLED is marred by several bright lines originating just below the midpoint of the display. These bands of damaged pixels extend all the way to the bottom and right edges. Some units also show lines of dead pixels following the crease from the top to the area where the bright lines begin.

Anyone who has seen a damaged OLED panel will be familiar with this type of defect. When the layers of the display are damaged, the pixels no longer receive the correct voltage to illuminate them. Instead, they get the full driving voltage and are permanently on at maximum brightness. Some pixels can get no voltage, leaving them totally black. The only fix is to replace the OLED, but swapping the iPhone Duo's screen reportedly costs half as much as the device itself.

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Android-powered foldable phones have been available for years, but most people never paid attention to them. As predicted, that could be changing now that Apple has entered the folding phone market with the iPhone Duo. Analysts have speculated that Samsung's Z8 foldables were seeing a boost from the iPhone announcement, and now Samsung has seemingly confirmed that.

In a new blog post, Samsung UK crows that the company's 2026 foldable lineup is moving much faster than last year's models. Compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 7, combined European sales for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra are up 45 percent. Samsung isn't talking about Z Flip 8 sales, but it previously noted that its larger foldables made up about 80 percent of foldable purchases. We can assume any increase there is not impressive enough to mention.

The reason for flat Z Flip sales may simply be that Apple didn't release a flip phone. Unsurprisingly, Samsung doesn't mention Apple or the iPhone Duo in its press release. However, it does say that search volume for the Z8 series across Europe spiked 460 percent the week of September 6 to 12. And guess what was announced on September 9? Yep, the iPhone Duo. Z Fold 8 search volume across the entire month of September (when the phones launched) was up 260 percent.

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Apple just revealed a new brand identity for Apple Music, with the expected turn to Liquid Glass. I’m not much of a fan of their new design language in general; this is where I admit that I’m still running MacOS Sequoia and have grumpy things to say about rounded corner radii and text legibility.

It’s just a trend, it will pass, and at some point I’ll probably cave and upgrade when it starts actually affecting my ability to get work done, or more importantly get security updates. Once I adjust, I’ll stop noticing it, and life will go on.

As such, I wouldn’t normally find an obvious rebrand like this notable, much less feel like I had much to say about it. But then I happened to catch Apple’s behind-the-scenes video in my YouTube recommendations, and I realized I did have thoughts.

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Apple opened preorders for the HomeView smart home hub today.

The HomeView is a 7-inch smart display and speaker that aims to be a central access point for up to six members of a family to access and control Apple’s ecosystem of devices, apps, and the Siri generative AI chatbot that's currently in beta.

Users can speak to HomeView to control smart home devices, such as, for example, telling Siri to close the smart blinds or activate smart locks. HomeView can also show a livestream for up to nine video feeds simultaneously.

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Just over 10 years after its initial release, space exploration and survival crafting game No Man's Sky is making its way to the iPhone and iPad, Apple and developer Hello Games announced today.

It will run on devices as far back as the iPhone 11 and the third-generation iPad Air. No Man's Sky might not have the most cutting-edge AAA graphics (though they're still strong, and they've come a long way since launch via updates), but the game's uncommon method of generating galaxies of incomprehensible scale on-device, and consistently for all players from a single-seed, happening on a phone is remarkable for those of us who remember phones performing far behind consoles or desktop PCs.

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