Apple’s next product announcement event is happening on September 9 at 1 pm ET, the company announced today. While most of Apple’s products are updated irregularly, Apple has reliably launched next-generation iPhones every September since the iPhone 5 was announced in 2012. This year, we expect new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro models.
The most reliable rumors about Apple’s next-gen iPhones (gathered here by MacRumors for your convenience) point to mostly iterative improvements to the current versions: marginally larger screens for the Pro phones, an Action Button and a rearranged camera bump for the non-Pro phones, and improved processors for each. Notably, both phones should be compatible with the first wave of Apple Intelligence AI features; as of this writing, the iPhone 15 Pro is the only iPhone that will support Apple Intelligence when it launches.
Apple also usually announces new Apple Watches at its September events. Updated Apple TV boxes are also occasionally unveiled, though Apple’s streaming box is updated more sporadically than most of its other products. We’re also due to get the first wave of M4 Macs at some point soon, including refreshed MacBook Pros and a newly redesigned Mac mini. But Apple often holds Mac launches for a separate event sometime in October or November, so don’t be surprised if the Mac goes unmentioned on September 9.
Whatever else Apple announces, the company is relatively unlikely to mention the iPad. Apple overhauled its entire iPad lineup in May, releasing new iPad Pro and iPad Air models, dropping the price of the 10th-generation iPad to $349 and totally discontinuing the aging 9th-gen iPad (also the last iPad to include a Lightning port, Home button, or headphone jack).
We’d also expect to get a release date for the public releases of all the new software versions Apple announces at WWDC in June: iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15 Sequoia, and new releases of watchOS, tvOS, and the HomePod operating system. But we already know that some of the Apple Intelligence features won’t launch until the iOS/iPadOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1 updates later in the year.
Enlarge/ Artist’s conception of Epic dodging harm from Apple’s decisions (and perhaps its own).
It’s been four years since Fortnite, one of the world’s most popular games, was pulled from the Apple App Store in a blaze of controversy and finger-pointing. Today, it’s returning to the iPhone—but only in the European Union.
Today marks the launch of the Epic Games Store on Android and iOS—iOS just in Europe, Android worldwide. Right now, it just has three games: Fortnite, Rocket League Sideswipe, and Fall Guys. And you’ll have to be in Europe to access it on your iPhone.
The Epic Games Store is run by Epic Games, the same company that develops and publishes Fortnite. Most folks who have been paying attention to either Epic or Apple in recent years knows the story at this point, but here’s the quick summary and analysis.
Opinion: Users are still the losers after four years
At the direction of CEO Tim Sweeney, Epic knowingly made changes to Fortnite related to digital payments that violated Apple’s terms for developers on the platform. Apple removed Fortnite accordingly, and a long, ugly PR and legal battle ensued between the two companies in multiple countries and regions.
In the US, a judge’s decision granted some small wins to Epic and other developers seeking to loosen Apple’s grip on the platform, but it kept the status quo for the most part.
Things went a little differently in Europe. EU legislators and regulators enacted the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which had far-reaching implications for how Apple and Google run their app stores. Among other things, the new law required Apple to allow third-party, alternative app stores (basically, sideloading) on the iPhone.
Apple’s compliance was far from enthusiastic (the company cited security and privacy concerns for users, which is valid, but the elephant in the room is, of course, its confident grip on app revenues on its platforms), and it was criticized for trying to put up barriers. Additionally, Apple rejected Epic’s attempts to launch its app store multiple times for a few arcane reasons amid a flurry of almost comically over-the-top tweets from Sweeney criticizing the company.
Despite Apple’s foot-dragging, Epic has finally reached the point where it could launch its app store. Epic had already launched a relatively successful App Store on PC, where Valve’s Steam holds a strong grip on users. The new iPhone app store doesn’t offer nearly as many options or perks as the PC version, but Epic says it’s working on wrangling developers onto its store.
It also says it will release its games on other alternative app stores on iOS and Android, such as AltStore PAL.
It’s been a long, winding, angry path to get to this point. In the battle between Epic and Apple, there remains some debate about who really has won up to this point. But there isn’t much dispute that, whether you want to blame Apple or Epic or both, users sure haven’t been the winners.
In two weeks, iPhone users in the European Union will be able to use any mobile wallet they like to complete “tap and go” payments with the ease of using Apple Pay.
The change comes as part of a settlement with the European Commission (EC), which investigated Apple for potentially shutting out rivals by denying access to the “Near Field Communication” (NFC) technology on its devices that enables the “tap and go” feature. Apple did not develop this technology, which is free for developers, the EC said, and going forward, Apple agreed to not charge developers fees to provide the NFC functionality on its devices.
In a press release, the EC’s executive vice president, Margrethe Vestager, said that Apple’s commitments in the settlement address the commission’s “preliminary concerns that Apple may have illegally restricted competition for mobile wallets on iPhones.”
“From now on, Apple can no longer use its control over the iPhone ecosystem to keep other mobile wallets out of the market,” Vestager said. “Competing wallet developers, as well as consumers, will benefit from these changes, opening up innovation and choice, while keeping payments secure.”
Apple has until July 25 to follow through on three commitments that resolve the EC’s concerns that Apple may have “prevented developers from bringing new and competing mobile wallets to iPhone users.”
Arguably, providing outside developers access to NFC functionality on its devices is the biggest change. Rather than allowing developers to access this functionality through Apple’s hardware, Apple has borrowed a solution prevalent in the Android ecosystem, Vestager said, granting access through a software solution called “Host Card Emulation mode.”
This, Vestager said, provides “an equivalent solution in terms of security and user experience” and paves the way for other wallets to be more easily used on Apple devices.
An Apple spokesperson told CNBC that “Apple is providing developers in the European Economic Area with an option to enable NFC contactless payments and contactless transactions for car keys, closed loop transit, corporate badges, home keys, hotel keys, merchant loyalty/rewards, and event tickets from within their iOS apps using Host Card Emulation based APIs.”
To ensure that Apple Pay is on an equal playing field with other wallets, the EC said that Apple committed to improve contactless payments functionality for rival wallets. That means that “iPhone users will be able to double-click the side button of their iPhones to launch” their preferred wallet and “use Face ID, Touch ID and passcode to verify” their identities when using competing wallets.
Perhaps most critically for users attracted to Apple’s payment options convenience, Apple also agreed to allow rival wallets to be set as the default payment option.
These commitments will remain in force for 10 years, Vestager said.
Apple did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment. Apple’s spokesperson confirmed to CNBC that no changes would be made to Apple Pay or Apple Wallet as a result of the settlement.
Apple’s commitments go beyond the DMA
Before accepting Apple’s commitments, the EC spoke to “many banks, app developers, card issuers, and financial associations,” Vestager said, whose feedback helped improve Apple’s commitments.
According to Vestager, Apple’s changes go beyond the requirements of the EU’s strict antitrust law, the Digital Markets Act, which “requires gatekeepers to ensure effective interoperability with hardware and software features that they use within their ecosystems,” including “access to NFC technology for mobile payments.”
Beyond the DMA, Apple agreed to have its compliance with the settlement “ensured by a monitoring trustee,” as well as to provide “a fast dispute resolution mechanism, which will also allow for an independent review of Apple’s implementation.”
Vestager assured all stakeholders in the European Economic Area that these changes will prevent any potential harms caused by Apple seeming to shut other wallets out of its devices, which “may have had a negative impact on innovation.” By settling the yearslong probe, Apple avoided a potentially large fine. In March, the EC fined Apple nearly $2 billion for restricting “alternative and cheaper music subscription services” like Spotify in its app store, and the suspected anticompetitive behavior in Apple’s payments ecosystem seemed just as harmful, the EC found.
“This reduction in choice and innovation is harmful,” Vestager said, confirming that the settlement concluded the EC’s probe into Apple Pay. “It is harmful to consumers and it is illegal under EU competition rules.”
Enlarge/ Apple has a lot to say about the third-party battery market in “Longevity, by Design,” specifically about how many batteries fail to meet testing standards.
Apple
Earlier this week, Apple published a whitepaper titled “Longevity by Design.” The purpose, Apple says, is to explain “the company’s principles for designing for longevity—a careful balance between product durability and repairability.” It also contains some notable changes to Apple’s parts pairing and repair technology.
Here is a summary of the action items in the document’s 24 pages:
True Tone, the color-balancing screen feature, can soon be activated on third-party screens, “to the best performance that can be provided.”
Battery statistics, like maximum capacity and cycle count, will be available “later in 2024” for third-party batteries, with a notice that “Apple cannot verify the information presented.”
Used Apple parts, transferred from one to another, will be “as easy to use as new Apple parts” in select products “later this year.”
Parts for “most repairs” from Apple’s Self Service Repair program will no longer require a device serial number to order.
Changes timed to “later this year” may well indicate their arrival with iOS 18 or a subsequent update.
Apple’s take on repair focuses on scale
To whom is Apple’s document explaining its principles? Apple might say it’s speaking to consumers and the public, but one might infer that the most coveted audience is elected representatives, or their staff, as they consider yet another state or federal bill aimed at regulating repair. Earlier this year, Oregon and Colorado passed repair bills that stop companies from halting repairs with software checks on parts, or “parts pairing.” Other recent bills and legal actions have targeted repair restrictions in Minnesota, Canada, and the European Union.
Apple came out in support of a repair bill in California and at the federal level, in large part because it allows for parts and tools pricing at “fair and reasonable terms” and requires non-affiliated vendors to disclose their independence and use of third-party parts to customers.
“Longevity, by Design” stakes out Apple’s position that there are things more important than repair. Due to what Apple says is its unique combination of software support, resale value, and a focus on preventing the most common device failures, the company “leads the industry in longevity” as measured in products’ value holding, lifespans, and service rates, Apple says. Hundreds of millions of iPhones more than five years old are in use, out-of-warranty service rates dropped 38 percent from 2015 to 2022, and initiatives like liquid ingress protection dropped repair rates on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus by 75 percent.
“The reliability of our hardware will always be our top concern when seeking to maximize the lifespan of products,” the whitepaper states. “The reason is simple: the best repair is the one that’s never needed.”
Photos from Apple’s “Longevity, by Design” document showing the water ingress testing as part of its design.
Apple
Consider the charge port
Apple offers the charging port on iPhones as “an internal case study” to justify why it often bundles parts together rather than making them individually replaceable. From the independent repair shops and techs I’ve talked to in my career, iPhone charging ports, and the chips that control them, are not an uncommon failure point. “Cheap charging cables from 7-11 are serial killers,” one board-level repair shop once told me. Apple disagrees, saying it must consider the broader impact of its designs.
“Making the charging port individually replaceable would require additional components, including its own flexible printed circuit board, connector, and fasteners that increase the carbon emissions required to manufacture each device,” Apple states. This could be justified if 10 percent of iPhones required replacement, but Apple says “the actual service rate was below 0.1%.” As such, keeping the port integrated is a lower-carbon-emission choice.
Enlarge/ Apple bragged about the thinness of the M4 iPad Pro; it’s apparently a template for the company’s designs going forward.
Apple
Though Apple has a reputation for prioritizing thinness in its hardware designs, the company has actually spent the last few years learning to embrace a little extra size and/or weight in its hardware. The Apple Silicon MacBook Pro designs are both thicker and heavier than the Intel-era MacBook Pros they replaced. The MacBook Air gave up its distinctive taper. Even the iPhone 15 Pro was a shade thicker than its predecessor.
But Apple is apparently planning to return to emphasizing thinness in its devices, according to reporting from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman (in a piece that is otherwise mostly about Apple’s phased rollout of the AI-powered features it announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference last week).
Gurman’s sources say that Apple is planning “a significantly skinnier iPhone in time for the iPhone 17 line in 2025,” which presumably means that we can expect the iPhone 16 to continue in the same vein as current iPhone 15 models. The Apple Watch and MacBook Pro are also apparently on the list of devices Apple is trying to make thinner.
Apple previewed this strategy with the introduction of the M4 iPad Pro a couple of months ago, which looked a lot like the previous-generation iPad Pro design but was a few hundredths of an inch thinner and (especially for the 13-inch model) noticeably lighter than before. Gurman says the new iPad Pro is “the beginning of a new class of Apple devices that should be the thinnest and lightest products in their categories across the whole tech industry.”
Thin-first design isn’t an inherently good or bad thing, but the issue in Apple’s case is that it has occasionally come at the expense of other more desirable features. A thinner device has less room for cooling hardware like fans and heatsinks, less room for batteries, and less room to fit ports.
The late-2010s-era MacBook Pro and Air redesigns were probably the nadir of this thin-first design, switching to all-Thunderbolt ports and a stiff-feeling butterfly switch keyboard design that also ended up being so breakage-prone that it spawned a long-running Apple repair program and a class-action lawsuit that the company settled. The 2020 and 2021 MacBooks reversed course on both decisions, reverting to a more traditional scissor-switch keyboard and restoring larger ports like MagSafe and HDMI.
Hopefully, Apple has learned the lessons of the last decade or so and is planning not to give up features people like just so it can craft thinner hardware. The new iPad Pros are a reason for optimism—they don’t really give up anything relative to older iPad models while still improving performance and screen quality. But iPad hardware is inherently more minimalist than the Mac and is less space-constrained than an iPhone or an Apple Watch. Here’s hoping Apple has figured out how to make a thinner, lighter Mac without giving up ports or keyboard quality or a thinner, lighter iPhone or Apple Watch without hurting battery life.
On Monday, Apple announced it would be integrating OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI assistant into upcoming versions of its iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems. It paves the way for future third-party AI model integrations, but given Google’s multi-billion-dollar deal with Apple for preferential web search, the OpenAI announcement inspired speculation about who is paying whom. According to a Bloomberg report published Wednesday, Apple considers ChatGPT’s placement on its devices as compensation enough.
“Apple isn’t paying OpenAI as part of the partnership,” writes Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, citing people familiar with the matter who wish to remain anonymous. “Instead, Apple believes pushing OpenAI’s brand and technology to hundreds of millions of its devices is of equal or greater value than monetary payments.”
The Bloomberg report states that neither company expects the agreement to generate meaningful revenue in the short term, and in fact, the partnership could burn extra money for OpenAI, because it pays Microsoft to host ChatGPT’s capabilities on its Azure cloud. However, OpenAI could benefit by converting free users to paid subscriptions, and Apple potentially benefits by providing easy, built-in access to ChatGPT during a time when its own in-house LLMs are still catching up.
And there’s another angle at play. Currently, OpenAI offers subscriptions (ChatGPT Plus, Enterprise, Team) that unlock additional features. If users subscribe to OpenAI through the ChatGPT app on an Apple device, the process will reportedly use Apple’s payment platform, which may give Apple a significant cut of the revenue. According to the report, Apple hopes to negotiate additional revenue-sharing deals with AI vendors in the future.
Why OpenAI
The rise of ChatGPT in the public eye over the past 18 months has made OpenAI a power player in the tech industry, allowing it to strike deals with publishers for AI training content—and ensure continued support from Microsoft in the form of investments that trade vital funding and compute for access to OpenAI’s large language model (LLM) technology like GPT-4.
Still, Apple’s choice of ChatGPT as Apple’s first external AI integration has led to widespread misunderstanding, especially since Apple buried the lede about its own in-house LLM technology that powers its new “Apple Intelligence” platform.
On Apple’s part, CEO Tim Cook told The Washington Post that it chose OpenAI as its first third-party AI partner because he thinks the company controls the leading LLM technology at the moment: “I think they’re a pioneer in the area, and today they have the best model,” he said. “We’re integrating with other people as well. But they’re first, and I think today it’s because they’re best.”
Apple’s choice also brings risk. OpenAI’s record isn’t spotless, racking up a string of public controversies over the past month that include an accusation from actress Scarlett Johansson that the company intentionally imitated her voice, resignations from a key scientist and safety personnel, the revelation of a restrictive NDA for ex-employees that prevented public criticism, and accusations against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman of “psychological abuse” related by a former member of the OpenAI board.
Meanwhile, critics of privacy issues related to gathering data for training AI models—including OpenAI foe Elon Musk, who took to X on Monday to spread misconceptions about how the ChatGPT integration might work—also worried that the Apple-OpenAI deal might expose personal data to the AI company, although both companies strongly deny that will be the case.
Looking ahead, Apple’s deal with OpenAI is not exclusive, and the company is already in talks to offer Google’s Gemini chatbot as an additional option later this year. Apple has also reportedly held talks with Anthropic (maker of Claude 3) as a potential chatbot partner, signaling its intention to provide users with a range of AI services, much like how the company offers various search engine options in Safari.
Enlarge/ He isn’t using an iPhone, but some people talk to Siri like this.
On Monday, Apple premiered “Apple Intelligence” during a wide-ranging presentation at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino, California. However, the heart of its new tech, an array of Apple-developed AI models, was overshadowed by the announcement of ChatGPT integration into its device operating systems.
Since rumors of the partnership first emerged, we’ve seen confusion on social media about why Apple didn’t develop a cutting-edge GPT-4-like chatbot internally. Despite Apple’s year-long development of its own large language models (LLMs), many perceived the integration of ChatGPT (and opening the door for others, like Google Gemini) as a sign of Apple’s lack of innovation.
“This is really strange. Surely Apple could train a very good competing LLM if they wanted? They’ve had a year,” wrote AI developer Benjamin De Kraker on X. Elon Musk has also been grumbling about the OpenAI deal—and spreading misinformation about it—saying things like, “It’s patently absurd that Apple isn’t smart enough to make their own AI, yet is somehow capable of ensuring that OpenAI will protect your security & privacy!”
While Apple has developed many technologies internally, it has also never been shy about integrating outside tech when necessary in various ways, from acquisitions to built-in clients—in fact, Siri was initially developed by an outside company. But by making a deal with a company like OpenAI, which has been the source of a string of tech controversies recently, it’s understandable that some people don’t understand why Apple made the call—and what it might entail for the privacy of their on-device data.
“Our customers want something with world knowledge some of the time”
While Apple Intelligence largely utilizes its own Apple-developed LLMs, Apple also realized that there may be times when some users want to use what the company considers the current “best” existing LLM—OpenAI’s GPT-4 family. In an interview with The Washington Post, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained the decision to integrate OpenAI first:
“I think they’re a pioneer in the area, and today they have the best model,” he said. “And I think our customers want something with world knowledge some of the time. So we considered everything and everyone. And obviously we’re not stuck on one person forever or something. We’re integrating with other people as well. But they’re first, and I think today it’s because they’re best.”
The proposed benefit of Apple integrating ChatGPT into various experiences within iOS, iPadOS, and macOS is that it allows AI users to access ChatGPT’s capabilities without the need to switch between different apps—either through the Siri interface or through Apple’s integrated “Writing Tools.” Users will also have the option to connect their paid ChatGPT account to access extra features.
As an answer to privacy concerns, Apple says that before any data is sent to ChatGPT, the OS asks for the user’s permission, and the entire ChatGPT experience is optional. According to Apple, requests are not stored by OpenAI, and users’ IP addresses are hidden. Apparently, communication with OpenAI servers happens through API calls similar to using the ChatGPT app on iOS, and there is reportedly no deeper OS integration that might expose user data to OpenAI without the user’s permission.
We can only take Apple’s word for it at the moment, of course, and solid details about Apple’s AI privacy efforts will emerge once security experts get their hands on the new features later this year.
Apple’s history of tech integration
So you’ve seen why Apple chose OpenAI. But why look to outside companies for tech? In some ways, Apple building an external LLM client into its operating systems isn’t too different from what it has previously done with streaming video (the YouTube app on the original iPhone), Internet search (Google search integration), and social media (integrated Twitter and Facebook sharing).
The press has positioned Apple’s recent AI moves as Apple “catching up” with competitors like Google and Microsoft in terms of chatbots and generative AI. But playing it slow and cool has long been part of Apple’s M.O.—not necessarily introducing the bleeding edge of technology but improving existing tech through refinement and giving it a better user interface.
The biggest feature in iOS 18, the one that affects the most people, was a single item in a comma-stuffed sentence by Apple software boss Craig Federighi: “Support for RCS.”
As we noted when Apple announced its support for “RCS Universal Profile,” a kind of minimum viable cross-device rich messaging, iPhone users getting RCS means SMS chains with Android users “will be slightly less awful.” SMS messages will soon have read receipts, higher-quality media sending, and typing indicators, along with better security. And RCS messages can go over Wi-Fi when you don’t have a cellular signal. Apple is certainly downplaying a major cross-platform compatibility upgrade, but it’s a notable quality-of-life boost.
Prioritized notifications through Apple Intelligence
Sending a friend an AI-generated image of them holding a birthday cake, which is not exactly the future we all envisioned for 2024, but here we are.
Apple
Example of a query that a supposedly now context-aware Siri can tackle.
Asking Siri “When is my mom’s flight landing,” followed by “What is our lunch plan?” can pull in data from multiple apps for an answer.
Apple Intelligence, the new Siri, and the iPhone
iOS 18 is one of the major beneficiaries of Apple’s AI rollout, dubbed “Apple Intelligence.” Apple Intelligence promises to help iPhone users create and understand language and images, with the proper context from your phone’s apps: photos, calendar, email, messages, and more.
Some of the suggested AI offerings include:
Auto-prioritizing notifications
Generating an AI image of people when you wish them a happy birthday.
Using Maps, Calendar, and an email with a meeting update to figure out if a work meeting change will make Federighi miss his daughter’s recital.
Many of the models needed to respond to your requests can be run on the device, Apple claims. For queries that need to go to remote servers, Apple relies on “Private Cloud Compute.” Apple has built its own servers, running on Apple Silicon, to handle requests that need more computational power. Your phone only sends the data necessary, is never stored, and independent researchers can verify the software on Apple’s servers, the company claims.
Siri is getting AI-powered upgrades across all platforms, including iOS. Apple says that Siri now understands more context in your questions to it. It will have awareness of what’s on your screen, so you could say “Add this address to his contact card” while messaging. You could ask it to “take a light-trail effect photo” from the camera. And “personal context” was repeatedly highlighted, including requests to find things people sent you, add your license number to a form (from an old ID picture), or ask “When is my mom’s flight landing?”
The non-AI things coming in iOS 18
A whole bunch of little boosts to iOS 18 announced by Apple.
On the iPhone itself, iOS 18 icons will change their look when in dark mode, and you can customize the look of compatible icons. Control Center, the pull-down menu in the top-right corner, now has multiple swipe-accessible controls, accessed through a strange-until-you’re-used-to-it long continuous swipe from the top. Developers are also getting access to the Control Center, so they can add their own apps’ controls. The lock screen will also get more customization, letting you swap out the standard flashlight and camera buttons for other items you prefer.
Privacy got some attention, too. Apps can be locked, such that Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode is necessary to open them. Apps can also be hidden and have their data prevented from showing up in notifications, searches, or other streams. New controls also limit the access you may grant to apps for contacts, network, and devices.
Messages will have “a huge year,” according to Apple. Tapbacks (instant reactions) can now include any emoji on the phone. Messages can be scheduled for later sending, text can be formatted, and there are “text effects” that do things like zoom in on the word “MAJOR” or make “Blown away” explode off the screen. And “Messages via satellite” is now available for phones that have satellite access, with end-to-end encryption.
Here’s a Messages upgrade that is absolutely going to surprise everybody when they forget about it in four months and then it shows up in a weird message.
The Mail app gets on-device categorization with Gmail-like labels like “Primary,” “Transactions,” “Updates,” and “Promotions.” Mail can also show you all the emails you get from certain businesses, such as receipts and tickets.
The Maps app is getting trail routes for US National Parks. Wallet now lets you “Tap to Cash,” sending money between phones in close proximity. Journal can now log your state of mind, track your goals, track streaks, and log “other fun stats.”
Photo libraries are getting navigation upgrades, with screenshots, receipts, and other banal photos automatically filtered out from gallery scrolls. There’s some automatic categorization of trips, days, and events. And, keeping with the theme of iOS 18, you can customize and reorder the collections and features Photos shows you when you browse through it.
This is a developing story and this post will be updated with new information.
Enlarge/ Panty liners, hygienic tampons, and sanitary pads.
People in the US are starting their menstrual cycles earlier and experiencing more irregularities, both of which raise the risk of a host of health problems later in life, according to an Apple women’s health study looking at data from over 70,000 menstruating iPhone users born between 1950 and 2005.
The mean age of people’s first period fell from 12.5 years in participants born between 1950 and 1969 to 11.9 years in participants born between 2000 and 2005, with a steady decline in between, the study found. There were also notable changes in the extremes—between 1950 and 2005, the percentage of people who started their periods before age 11 rose from 8.6 percent to 15.5 percent. And the percentage of people who started their periods late (at age 16 or above) dropped from 5.5 percent to 1.7 percent.
In addition to periods shifting to earlier starting ages, menstrual cycles also appeared to become more irregular. For this, researchers looked at how quickly people settled into a regular cycle after the start of their period. Between 1950 and 2005, the percentage of people obtaining regularity within two years fell from 76.3 percent to 56 percent.
The study, published by researchers at Apple and Harvard in the journal JAMA Network Open, notes that both of these findings bode poorly for long-term health. Early starting age of menstrual cycles is linked to adverse health outcomes, including cardiovascular diseases, cancers, spontaneous abortion, and premature death, the researchers write. And a longer time to regularity is linked to fertility problems, longer menstrual cycles, and an increased risk of metabolic conditions and all-cause mortality.
Looking across race and ethnicity categories, researchers found that the trends affected all groups. However, Black and Hispanic participants had consistently earlier menstrual starting ages than white and Asian participants. Black participants also saw a larger magnitude shift toward earlier starting ages compared with white participants.
It’s unclear what’s driving the menstrual changes, but the authors speculate that there could be a multitude of factors. The most prominent potential factor is childhood obesity, which has increased in the US over the course of the study period and is known to be linked to earlier puberty. However, the authors note that obesity doesn’t explain the totality of the shifts—an exploratory analysis indicated that obesity only accounted for 46 percent of the trends seen in the study. And other studies have indicated that the shift toward earlier menstrual cycles began before the upward trend of obesity in the US.
The authors of the current study point to various potential environmental factors, including endocrine-disrupting chemicals, metals, air pollutants, dietary patterns, psychosocial stress, and adverse childhood experiences.
The study has limitations, of course, including that it relied on self-reported data and was limited to people who own iPhones, who generally skew toward higher socioeconomic status. Thus, the findings may not be generalizable to the population overall. Still, the data fits with other studies, and the researchers called for more awareness among health care practitioners and more studies to look at trends and health outcomes.
Enlarge/ The Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California.
Apple’s earnings report for the second quarter of the company’s 2024 fiscal year showed a slide in hardware sales, especially for the iPhone. Nonetheless, Apple beat analysts’ estimates for the quarter thanks to the company’s rapidly growing services revenue.
iPhone revenue dropped from $51.33 billion in the same quarter last year to $45.96 billion, a fall of about 10 percent. This was the second consecutive quarter with declining iPhone revenues. That said, investors feared a sharp drop before the earnings call.
Notably, Apple’s revenue in the region it dubs Greater China (which includes China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong) fell 8 percent overall. The company fared a little better in other regions. China’s economy is slowing even as China-based Huawei is taking bigger slices of the pie in the region.
Globally, Mac revenue was $7.5 billion compared to last year’s $7.12 billion. Other products—which include the Watch, AirPods, Apple TV 4K, HomePod, and the new Vision Pro headset—were down to $7.9 billion from last year’s $8.76 billion, despite the fact this quarter included the launch of the Vision Pro.
iPad revenue was also down, at $5.6 billion from $6.67 billion. Apple is expected to launch new iPads next week, which suggests that those updates are needed to achieve the company’s business goals.
The rosiest revenue category was services, which includes everything from Apple Music to iCloud. Its revenue was $23.9 billion, up from Q2 2023’s $20.91 billion.
The company also announced authorization of $110 billion for share purchases.
Enlarge/Assassin’s Creed Mirage returned to the earlier games’ focus on stealth assassinations in a historical urban environment.
Ubisoft
Apple has spent the last year trying to convince gamers that they can get a console-like, triple-A experience on the latest iPhones. The newest test of that promise will be Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which now has a release date and pricing information.
Mirage will land on compatible iPhones—the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max—on June 6, according to Ubisoft (though the App Store listing says June 10.) That coincides pretty closely with Apple’s annual developer conference, so we’d expect it to get a shoutout there. Ubisoft’s blog post also says it will come to the iPad Air and iPad Pro models with an M1 chip or later.
The game will be a free download with a 90-minute free trial. After that, you’ll have to pay $50 to keep playing, which is pretty close to what the game costs on PC and consoles. It will support cross-progression, provided you sign into Ubisoft Connect. Ubisoft Connect is not exactly beloved by players, but it’s nice to be able to take your saves back and forth between other platforms if you can stomach it.
That cross-progression feature is key because the game launched several months ago on other platforms, so players interested in it probably already have made some progress in the story, if they haven’t finished it already.
Mirage is well over a dozen mainline games into the franchise, but it’s a smaller, more focused game than 2018’s Odyssey or 2020’s Valhalla. While those games expanded the franchise away from its stealth roots to become more of a full-fledged The Witcher 3-like open-world RPG experience, Mirage goes back to the old style of gameplay. It originally started as DLC for Valhalla but was expanded into a full game.
It won’t be the first triple-A game to hit the iPhone 15 and later, though the list has been short so far. A couple of Resident Evil games have made their way to phones (Resident Evil 4‘s remake and Resident Evil Village), and Apple has also managed to get respectable ports of No Man’s Sky, Death Stranding, and Baldur’s Gate 3 to Apple Silicon Macs.
When we tested the Resident Evil titles on the iPhone 15, we found that the graphics and performance were quite respectable—perhaps comparable to what you’d get on a PlayStation 4 Pro, a mid-range gaming laptop, or a Steam Deck—but that the touch controls never seem to cut it, so you’ll want to use a controller. iOS supports the latest PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo controllers, as well as attachable controllers like the Razer Kishi. Mirage will also support those controllers.
In the world of AI, what might be called “small language models” have been growing in popularity recently because they can be run on a local device instead of requiring data center-grade computers in the cloud. On Wednesday, Apple introduced a set of tiny source-available AI language models called OpenELM that are small enough to run directly on a smartphone. They’re mostly proof-of-concept research models for now, but they could form the basis of future on-device AI offerings from Apple.
Apple’s new AI models, collectively named OpenELM for “Open-source Efficient Language Models,” are currently available on the Hugging Face under an Apple Sample Code License. Since there are some restrictions in the license, it may not fit the commonly accepted definition of “open source,” but the source code for OpenELM is available.
On Tuesday, we covered Microsoft’s Phi-3 models, which aim to achieve something similar: a useful level of language understanding and processing performance in small AI models that can run locally. Phi-3-mini features 3.8 billion parameters, but some of Apple’s OpenELM models are much smaller, ranging from 270 million to 3 billion parameters in eight distinct models.
In comparison, the largest model yet released in Meta’s Llama 3 family includes 70 billion parameters (with a 400 billion version on the way), and OpenAI’s GPT-3 from 2020 shipped with 175 billion parameters. Parameter count serves as a rough measure of AI model capability and complexity, but recent research has focused on making smaller AI language models as capable as larger ones were a few years ago.
The eight OpenELM models come in two flavors: four as “pretrained” (basically a raw, next-token version of the model) and four as instruction-tuned (fine-tuned for instruction following, which is more ideal for developing AI assistants and chatbots):
OpenELM features a 2048-token maximum context window. The models were trained on the publicly available datasets RefinedWeb, a version of PILE with duplications removed, a subset of RedPajama, and a subset of Dolma v1.6, which Apple says totals around 1.8 trillion tokens of data. Tokens are fragmented representations of data used by AI language models for processing.
Apple says its approach with OpenELM includes a “layer-wise scaling strategy” that reportedly allocates parameters more efficiently across each layer, saving not only computational resources but also improving the model’s performance while being trained on fewer tokens. According to Apple’s released white paper, this strategy has enabled OpenELM to achieve a 2.36 percent improvement in accuracy over Allen AI’s OLMo 1B (another small language model) while requiring half as many pre-training tokens.
Enlarge/ An table comparing OpenELM with other small AI language models in a similar class, taken from the OpenELM research paper by Apple.
Apple
Apple also released the code for CoreNet, a library it used to train OpenELM—and it also included reproducible training recipes that allow the weights (neural network files) to be replicated, which is unusual for a major tech company so far. As Apple says in its OpenELM paper abstract, transparency is a key goal for the company: “The reproducibility and transparency of large language models are crucial for advancing open research, ensuring the trustworthiness of results, and enabling investigations into data and model biases, as well as potential risks.”
By releasing the source code, model weights, and training materials, Apple says it aims to “empower and enrich the open research community.” However, it also cautions that since the models were trained on publicly sourced datasets, “there exists the possibility of these models producing outputs that are inaccurate, harmful, biased, or objectionable in response to user prompts.”
While Apple has not yet integrated this new wave of AI language model capabilities into its consumer devices, the upcoming iOS 18 update (expected to be revealed in June at WWDC) is rumored to include new AI features that utilize on-device processing to ensure user privacy—though the company may potentially hire Google or OpenAI to handle more complex, off-device AI processing to give Siri a long-overdue boost.
