Opinion pieces & commentary

A few years ago, the idea of Apple backing right to repair legislation would have been almost unimaginable – even if the company’s co-founder did urge it to do so.

The company has spent literally years fighting it, spending money to lobby against it at both state and federal level, either trying to block it altogether or – if it couldn’t manage that – to weaken the legislation as much as possible …

Analysts have been pitching the idea of Apple buying Disney for many years, and to most of us it has seemed a rather ridiculous one. The supposed reasoning for it has always been absurdly weak.

Personally, I remain extremely skeptical. But the idea is now getting new traction, and being taken seriously in some unlikely quarters – and even I have to admit that there is some merit to the latest incarnation of the idea-that-will-not-die …

A report yesterday revealed that a set of popular streaming TV services can now cost more than traditional cable TV packages.

It pointed out that subscription costs have risen dramatically, which creates an obvious risk of people cutting back on the number of services. But I think there’s a second issue, too, and that’s the competition for attention …

Cortana is Microsoft’s virtual assistant, which was introduced in 2014 back when Windows Phone was still a thing. Similar to Siri, Cortana lets users perform a number of tasks using voice commands. But it seems Microsoft is giving up on its old virtual assistant, as the latest Windows 11 update kills the Cortana app. The reason? The company will now bet on AI instead.

When I recently wrote about the iPhone 15 Pro rumors I care about, I mentioned that upgrading to an iPhone 14 Pro Max wasn’t exactly exciting since I get a new iPhone every year. But I never imagined I’d have to downgrade to an iPhone 11 Pro Max after all these years. Yes, I did that, and honestly, there’s not much I’m missing.

Some might argue that smartphones have reached a peak level where year-on-year evolutions don’t seem so great. At the same time, some companies have been experimenting with different things – and Samsung is one of them. The South Korean company on Wednesday announced the new Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Fold 5, which show that it still believes in the foldable market.

Read on as we detail what’s new with these phones and what they mean for the whole market.

Technically, there won’t be any shortage of Vision Pro apps at launch, given that existing iPad apps will run on the platform. But that’s much like arguing that there was no shortage of iPad apps when the device was launched, because iPhone apps ran on the tablet.

Porting apps to Apple’s spatial computer in a way that takes full advantage of the very different environment of Vision Pro takes work – and early signs aren’t looking good …

News that Apple has developed its own generative AI model – dubbed Apple GPT – caused a little flurry of excitement yesterday, with John Gruber noting that it caused AAPL’s stock price to briefly spike by 2.7%

Even investors seemed to quickly realise that the news doesn’t mean much, however, as most of that gain was lost by the end of the day …

Today has seen fresh reporting that upcoming EU legislation will either definitely or probably force Apple to change the iPhone battery replacement process.

We’ve noted before that this is far from certain, and anyone expecting DIY battery replacements to get easier is definitely going to be disappointed in the short-term, and very possibly the long-term too…

Sure, I’m a gadget guy who likes shiny new toys as much as the next geek, but I do try to refrain from upgrades for their own sake – admittedly with mixed success.

My biggest challenge is with the iPhone. I’ve historically described this as my least-important Apple gadget, and therefore one that I ought to upgrade least frequently. For years now, however, I’ve fallen victim to the annual camera upgrades …

We’ve been hearing a lot of rumors about iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro. As reported by 9to5Mac many times, Apple has been planning a refreshed design with slightly curved edges, plus a new titanium frame for the Pro models. There are also rumors about the entire lineup getting the Dynamic Island and USB-C. But among all these rumors, there are only two that I really care about.

Reports of the death of Twitter have so far been somewhat exaggerated. Musk may have made dumb decision after dumb decision, but each time either did a rapid U-turn shortly afterwards, or the sheer momentum of Twitter as the default social media app has carried it through.

But this time, Musk has not only achieved Michael Scott levels of ineptitude, but Meta has brought forward the launch of its Twitter rival Threads in order to take advantage of the chaos …

Everyone I know who has tried Apple’s upcoming spatial computer has been impressed, but the big question remains: What is Vision Pro for? Who will buy it, and why?

Having had the opportunity to use a similar high-end mixed reality headset, and to consider some of the use cases of that device, I think I’m now a step closer to being able to at least partially answer that question …

Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program was the company’s first attempt to turn hardware into a subscription product, but it certainly won’t be the last. To me, there’s a very obvious opportunity here for an Apple Vision Upgrade Program.

In my view, this would be a win for Apple and consumers alike …

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is continuing his damage control tour, this time via a new interview with The Verge. Despite a large number of subreddits still offline in protest over Reddit’s changes to third-party apps, Huffman is once again doubling down on that decision.

This time, his argument is that the Reddit API – which has been used by third-party apps successfully for years – “was never designed to support third-party apps.”

I’ll save my full opinion on this for the “9to5Mac’s Take” section below… but I’ll give you the gist of it here: “bullshit.”

Yeah, it is somewhat crazy to start an Apple Vision Diary when the first-gen model isn’t set to go on sale until next year, and I currently don’t expect to buy until the third-gen, and I’m saying I think that could be four years away. But here we are (and I kind of already did).

Let’s start by looking at the timings of Vision Pro going on sale – both theory, and potential practice …

Apple’s Reality Vision Pro was in some ways one of the company’s worst-kept secrets. We’ve known for years that Apple was working on AR/VR devices, and our renders were close enough to give us a decent preview of the design.

But Apple still knocked it out of the park yesterday! What we witnessed was the most impressive implementation of mixed reality that’s ever been seen, and also the most persuasive (partial) answer so far to the question, Why would anyone use this tech? …

The iPad lineup has grown considerably in recent years. If you go to an Apple Store (or just open Apple’s website) now, you’ll find six different models available, ranging from the entry-level 9th generation iPad to the expensive 12.9-inch iPad Pro. I have two iPads: the latest M2 11-inch iPad Pro and the iPad mini 6. And the more I use both models, the more I’m sure the iPad mini is my favorite – here’s why.

I won’t be buying Reality Pro. That’s partly down to the anticipated price, but also because I haven’t yet found either augmented or virtual reality to be in any way compelling.

Cute, yes. Impressive, also yes. But I can’t remember the last time I used an AR app, and while I did buy a VR headset, I also can’t remember the last time I dug it out of the back of a drawer …

Whether or not we expect to buy, I suspect most of us would like to at least try Apple’s upcoming AR/VR headset. But the availability of Reality Pro demos is likely to be limited, even after the product goes on sale toward the end of the year.

It may even be that Apple takes a similar approach to the original gold Apple Watch – where you not only had to make an appointment, but one that took place off the main sales floor …

There’s been a lot of speculation lately about Apple’s Reality Pro launch plans, and also about the pricing of the device.

The consensus view so far has been that Apple will announce the Reality Pro AR/VR headset at WWDC on June 5, and that pricing will be around $3,000. But some are questioning both …