Month: October 2026

It is always exciting to anticipate new products from Apple, and we are just a few days away from Apple’s newest smart home products. Thus, Brett Burney and I begin this week’s episode of the podcast discussing what we hope and expect to see from Apple on Tuesday. We also talk about Tim Cook with the King, why the newest AirPods may be a good alternative to the AirPods Pro, Florida’s decision not to support a digital driver’s license for the Apple Wallet app, and more.

In our In the Know segment, Brett shares a tip for accessing apps on the Apple Watch, and I share some backup tips that can save your bacon if a hard drive fails—which happened to me this week.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice. You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

Welcome home! On Tuesday, October 13 at 9:00 Eastern, Apple is holding an event in Tribeca, New York, to announce new products for the home, as reported by Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac (and many others!). Rumors suggest we will see a new version of the HomePod with a screen—maybe they will call it a HomePad?—that can act as a central hub for your home. Also expected are new versions of the HomePod mini and a new Apple TV 4K. Lewis Wallace of Cult of Mac suggests we may also see smart home devices like a door lock, thermostat, video doorbell, indoor camera, outdoor camera, floodlight camera, temperature sensor, or more. John Gruber of Daring Fireball discusses the rumor, from Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, that Apple partnered with LG to create those devices. I’ve long been a fan of smart home technology that improves my quality of life, and I’m very excited to find out what Apple has been working on. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• I hate to put too much credence in rumors, but since we are talking about October Apple announcements, I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention that Mark Gurman of Bloomberg is predicting that around October 27, Apple will announce a new iPad mini, MacBook Pros with touchscreens (a first for a Mac), and perhaps more, as noted by Chance Miller of 9to5Mac. We’ll see.
• If you haven’t yet upgraded to iOS 27 because you are waiting for your iPhone to tell you to do so, your iPhone apparently waited longer than normal, as noted by John Gruber of Daring Fireball, in an effort to let Apple slow the ramp-up to Siri AI. But according to Joe Rossignol of MacRumors, Apple is now starting to encourage people to upgrade. You really should upgrade because there are so many great features. Indeed, if you haven’t checked out last week’s episode of the In the News podcast (YouTube link), you should because it’s made up entirely of great iOS 27 tips.
• David Phelan of The Independent interviewed Tim Cook to talk about his new job at Apple now that he is no longer CEO. The article also mentions how some creative kids in London got a chance to meet Tim Cook, the King, and Elton John.
• Oliver Haslam of AppleInsider reviews the Apple Watch Series 12.
• Text messages between two iPhones—the blue bubbles—are typically encrypted and secure. But as noted by Glenn Fleishman of Six Colors, there are certain circumstances in which the messages are not encrypted.
• M.G. Siegler of Spyglass explains why someone might want to get the new AirPods 5 instead of AirPods Pro.
• If you use an iPhone 18 Pro Max on AT&T, update to iOS 27.0.1 now if you haven’t already to prevent a problem that could stop your iPhone from making cellular calls, as explained by Chance Miller of 9to5Mac. (That update was released on September 28, 2026.) Note that the iPhone 18 Pro—without the “Max”—doesn’t have the problem because it uses Apple’s C2 modem instead of a Qualcomm modem.
• I’ve long been a fan of TextExpander. I use it on my PC at work, my Mac at home, and my iPad and iPhone. Marcus Mendes of 9to5Mac reports that TextExpander now has a free version, a great way to try it out. The free version only supports five snippets, but that is more than enough to try it out and see what you think.
• Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac reports that Florida won’t adopt Apple Wallet driver’s licenses because Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says: “The convenience of a digital driver’s license is outweighed by the potential for government to abuse it.” Meanwhile, everyone who lives in a state that has long supported a digital driver’s license in Apple Wallet is saying: What in the world are you talking about?!? To be fair, I know some privacy advocates, like the ACLU, have warned that digital licenses could be abused by a government if the government also gained the ability to monitor where you were and what you were doing every time you present a digital license. But the Apple Wallet app specifically does not do that.
• Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac reports that a new show on Apple TV called Small Prophets has been getting a lot of great buzz. The show debuted in the UK earlier this year, and Apple purchased the worldwide distribution rights. This is the first time that Apple has done something like this.
• And finally, I enjoyed the first season of the Apple TV show Stick, and Season 2 starts on November 4th. The following trailer does give away some details about a big plot twist in Season 2, but my guess is that it is all stuff that we will learn in the first episode, and it is a fun trailer that gets me excited for the new season.

Even if you did not purchase a new iPhone this year, you now own a device with many new features thanks to the new operating systems that were released last month: iOS 27 and iPadOS 27. For this week’s episode of the podcast, Brett Burney and I recorded a special edition focused on our favorite features that we have found so far. Brett happened to be in New Orleans when we recorded this episode, which was fun and meant that we were not using our normal podcast setup. Unfortunately, we learned after the recording that one of the two microphones that we were using was not working correctly, so as a result, Brett’s voice sounds louder than my voice on the recording. The sound quality of the episode is not quite as good as we intended, and I apologize for that. Nevertheless, if you want some fantastic tips for new things that you can now do, I think that you will really enjoy this special episode.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice. You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

If something goes wrong with an Apple product—such as if you drop it—fixing the product can be easier and cheaper if you have AppleCare. But just like any type of insurance, if nothing goes wrong, you may feel like you didn’t need it. I have gone back and forth over the years about whether I purchase AppleCare, but for the last few years, I have started to purchase it to provide peace of mind. There are many different kinds of AppleCare services, as noted by Hartley Charlton of MacRumors. Most recently, Apple released AppleCare Family, a service that costs $49.99 per month and covers every eligible device owned by the subscriber and five other family members. I recently realized that my family and I were already paying close to that much every month anyway, so by spending just a little more on AppleCare Family, we now have coverage for many more devices for a single monthly payment. In a perfect world, nothing would ever go wrong with an Apple product owned by me, my wife, and my two kids. But the world is not perfect, and I sleep a little better at night knowing that we have protection just in case. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Jason Snell of Six Colors wrote an initial review of the Apple Watch Series 12.
• Michael Burkhardt of 9to5Mac discusses the new Apple Watch Series 12.
• Wesley Hilliard of AppleInsider reviews the Apple Watch Ultra 4.
• Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac discusses how Face ID is hidden beneath the iPhone 18 Pro screen.
• Glenn Fleishman of Six Colors discusses the ethics of products that silence the speaker on an Apple AirTag.
• Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac discusses the new and improved actions in Apple’s Shortcuts app.
• In an article for the Wall Street Journal, Jason Snell reviews the book Shop Different by Ron Johnson, the former Apple executive who invented the Apple Store.
• There has been a lot of recent discussion about the future of the Apple Vision Pro, mostly because of some articles by Mark Gurman of Bloomberg suggesting that Apple may be giving up on the project. I don’t think that is true at all, based on what we have been seeing from Apple lately. Instead, I think that Apple is just taking a slow-and-steady approach to this technology that is still in its early stages but has enormous potential. I agree with much of what Wesley Hilliard of AppleInsider says in this article on the topic.
• Husain Parvez of Engadget discusses whether a travel router is worth using.
• Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac notes that Apple has added some additional classic movies to the Apple TV service, including Good Will Hunting, Taxi Driver, Tropic Thunder, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and more.
• Apple built a music venue, Apple Music Hall, inside of its Battersea Power Station building in London. The first artist to perform was Elton John, and you can click here to watch him perform Your Song in the Apple Music app.
• And finally, in this video, Joanna Stern tests the improved battery life in the iPhone 18 Pro, with the help of a pickle.