In the News

I’ve always thought that working as a lawyer for Apple has to be a fascinating way to practice law, and the top General Counsel position has to be the most interesting—and difficult—job of all. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996 and started the modern era of the company, he made Nancy Heinen the General Counsel—a job that she had performed at NeXT before Apple purchased the company to bring Jobs back to Apple. Heinen held the position until May of 2006, when she resigned shortly before Apple admitted to some irregularities in the backdating of stock options. It took Apple six months to replace Heinen, and the next two replacements did not last as long as Heinen. First, Apple hired Donald Rosenberg in November of 2007, who had previously been general counsel at IBM, but he only lasted ten months before he left Apple to become general counsel at Qualcomm. In September of 2007, Daniel Cooperman, former general counsel at Oracle, was given the position, but he left Apple after two years to return to private practice and to teach. In September of 2009, Apple hired Bruce Sewell. During the eight years that Sewell led the legal department at Apple, Apple became the largest company in the world thanks to the iPhone. Sewell oversaw numerous complex legal issues, including litigation with Samsung for copying the iPhone, efforts to get back a prototype iPhone 4 that an Apple employee left in a bar, and numerous consumer privacy issues including negotiations with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies around the world eager to access confidential information on iPhones. Sewell retired at the end of 2017. He was replaced by Kate Adams, who was previously general counsel at Honeywell. I mention all of this today because Apple announced this week that Adams is retiring after eight years at Apple. It seems like Apple has faced more lawsuits and regulations by countries around the world during the last eight years than ever before, and I can only imagine how busy her plate has been. Adams will be replaced on March 1, 2026, by Jennifer Newstead. Newstead has served as general counsel at Facebook since 2019, and she has a very impressive resume before that, including serving as the Legal Adviser to the United States Department of State and teaching at my alma mater, Georgetown University Law Center. Apple needs good lawyers now more than ever, and Newstead certainly has a track record of working on important and complicated legal matters. I wish her well in this important and difficult job. And now, the other news of note from the past week.

• Apple also announced that another very senior executive is retiring: Lisa Jackson, Vice President for Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives. Jackson grew up in my hometown of New Orleans and was the head of the EPA from 2009 to 2013. Apple CEO Tim Cook praised Jackson for “helping us reduce our global greenhouse emissions by more than 60 percent compared to 2015 levels.”
• Another transition at Apple is that Steve Lemay is replacing Alan Dye as the head of UI design at Apple—a critical position for a company that for decades has been perhaps the best design company in the world. Leander Kagney of Cult of Mac provides background on Lemay, including the funny story of how he got the nickname “Margaret” from Steve Jobs.
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball wrote an interesting article this week explaining why he thinks that it is great news for Apple that Alan Dye is leaving.
• There are rumors that Tim Cook is also planning to retire, perhaps in 2026, and the rumor is that the CEO position will go to John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering. I don’t mean to suggest that all of these executive transitions were part of some master plan for Apple, but if Apple is planning a transition from Cook to Ternus, maybe it is a good thing to bring in younger talent to these critical positions in the company.
• Apple announced its 2025 App Store Award winners, and Joe Rossignol of MacRumors reports on who won. For example, the iPhone app of the year is Tiimo, a task and planning assistant.
• Amazon is selling Apple’s iPhone cases for about 50% off right now. For example, the Clear Case is $25 instead of $49, and the Silicone Case is also $25 instead of $49. I don’t currently use a case for my iPhone 17 Pro Max, but at these prices, I’m thinking about getting one for the rare occasions when I might decide to use a case.
• If your iPhone is having trouble using Wi-Fi, Jason Snell of Six Colors reports that the solution might be to reset network settings.
• FaceTime communications are encrypted, and I guess Russia has figured that out. Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that Russia is now blocking FaceTime video calls, asserting that it is a tool used for terrorist attacks.
• India is ordering Apple to pre-load on every iPhone in that country an app that can be used to track an iPhone and, somehow, prevent them from being misused. John Gruber of Daring Fireball reports that Apple responded by saying that it does not plan to comply. The initial report was that India was going to mandate that the app could not be removed from an iPhone, but a follow-up report from Marcus Mendes of 9to5Mac says that India is now saying that the app has to be installed, but that it can be removed by a user. It will be interesting to see how this all pans out.
• Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac explains some of the new features that we now have in the Messages app thanks to iOS 26.
• Bradley Chambers of 9to5Mac recommends top HomeKit picks for Christmas.
• Earlier this year, I reviewed the TimeCapsule by Elevation Lab. It’s a cool device that allows an AirTag to last ten years. I put one in my car, and now I never need to worry about the battery dying. But to be honest, ten years is a crazy long time, and the device would be just as useful to me if it lasted five years—at which time we will probably have a better version of the AirTag that I want to use. Elevation Lab is now selling a compact version of the Time Capsule that is smaller and lasts five years. On Amazon, the price is $19.99 for one, or $39.99 for four. Like the larger model, this new version is waterproof, and it hides the AirTag itself, making it far less obvious to a thief what it is.
• Apple is once again projecting video onto the Battersea Power Station Apple Store in London. This year, as reported by Marcus Mendes of 9to5Mac, Apple is projecting designs by iPad users. It looks fun.
• Samuel Axon of Ars Technica reviews the new M5 version of the Apple Vision Pro, and at the same time provides his thoughts on the present and future of the platform as a whole. I don’t agree with all of his opinions, but I did enjoy reading his perspective.
• John Voorhees of MacStories reports on some of the shows coming to Apple TV this month, including the F1 movie and A Charlie Brown Christmas, and some of the games coming to Apple Arcade.
• I’ve been waiting for Apple TV to show Season 3 of the excellent show Tehran. It has been a year since Season 3 debuted in Israel, but because of events in the world, Apple delayed the release in the United States. Zac Ntim of Deadline reports that Season 3 will finally debut in the United States on January 9, 2026, and Season 4 is now in production.
• I wish that the next season of Severance could come to Apple TV in 2026, but Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac explains why it will more likely be June or September of 2027.
• And finally, December 3 was the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and Apple used that occasion to release a fantastic video called I’m Not Remarkable that celebrates college students with disabilities using Apple products. As Shelly Brisbin notes in an article for Six Colors, the tools featured in the video include the Magnifier app for the Mac, Braille access, an accessibility reader, sound recognition, live captions, and assistive touch.