Apple Rumors

Mark Gurman said on The MacRumors Show podcast yesterday that he “thinks we might” get a new base model iPad in October, noting it tends to come annually, announced via video instead of an event (like the M2 Pro computers early this year).

He says a new iPad Air will come “soonish,” so that doesn’t sound likely for October. But hey, at least we might get those M3 iMacs.

This post on X (formerly Twitter) could show the colors for the standard iPhone 15 — at least, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo lists similar colors in a blog post on Medium.

Kuo also corroborates the oft-rumored titanium frame for the 15 Pro phones, which may have contributed to production issues. He also mentions a possible iPhone 15 Pro gray color, which has been rumored recently.

As spotted by 9to5Mac, the iOS 17 beta 7 has a new haptic feedback pattern that makes the “phone vibrate more prominently” to signal when silent mode is on or off.

That would make sense if Apple ends up replacing the mute switch with a solid-state action button, as the vibration could help users determine which mode it's in.

Apple says it’s been working on AI research for years, and recent job listings show its current focus, reports the Financial Times.

Over the last few months company has posted dozens of AI jobs in the US, France, and China, looking to fill roles that could help build generative AI tools that use local processing on mobile devices, like this one:

We are seeking a candidate with a proven track record in applied ML research. Responsibilities in the role will include training large scale language and multimodal models on distributed backends, deployment of compact neural architectures such as transformers efficiently on device, and learning policies that can be personalized to the user in a privacy preserving manner.

ESPN reports Apple is a “likely leader” to snag broadcasting rights starting next year, but it’s not that simple.

With USC and UCLA headed to the Big Ten next year and Colorado going back to the Big 12, the conference is in a fight to hold onto its remaining schools. 247Sports reports conference commish George Kliavkoff showed three deals to school leaders and presented Apple’s as the strongest, but they may be skeptical of signing a streaming deal that relies heavily on subscription incentives.

The upcoming iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max are expected to come with an action button — similar to the one on the Apple Watch Ultra — that replaces the device’s ring/silent switch. But now, we have a better idea of what it might be able to do.

As spotted by MacRumors, code in the iOS 17 beta 4 suggests you can program nine different functions into the action button, potentially allowing you to quickly access the Camera app, turn on the flashlight, launch the Translate app, and more.

As spotted by MacRumors, Apple’s TestFlight app has been updated to support visionOS. That’s a sign Apple could start shipping out dev kits soon, allowing developers to test out their apps for the $3,499 mixed-reality system.

In a pair of tweets, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple would “aggressively” upgrade hardware specs with an eye to the ecosystem around its $3,499 headset.

That includes bumping the iPhone 15’s ultra-wideband (UWB) chip to a new 7nm process and a likely update to Wi-Fi 7 on the iPhone 16. Wi-Fi 7 devices should support faster mesh networking features and lower in-home latency. Qualcomm has said it will enable “peak speeds up to 5.8 Gbps” to a single device.

In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman is again highlighting Apple Vision Pro successors. That includes a 2nd-gen Vision Pro with a faster processor, as well as a cheaper one that could arrive by late 2025, with a two-product split mirroring Apple’s phones, laptops, and tablets.

Gurman offered a theory on why Tim Cook never donned the headset WWDC — Apple execs don’t want to be turned into memes by unflattering pictures.

We may not know until after WWDC, but Apple's mixed reality headset probably won't address every AR issue right out of the gate. As pointed out by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter today:

I expect that future versions will fix problems in the first model — such as nausea complaints, performance hiccups, overheating concerns and a lack of cellular connectivity — and bring down the price.

That’s not surprising, and doesn’t paint the “Reality Pro” as doomed, just a first attempt likely aimed at developers and very early adopters. As Casey Newton writes for The Verge, whether Apple’s new platform succeeds depends more on its evolution than on tomorrow’s device.

Late last year, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said Apple would change Siri’s invocation phrase to just “Siri” but was unsure about how long that shift might take. Now he says the change will be announced along with everything else we’ll hear about at WWDC next week.

Apple has a little AR teaser for WWDC (spotted by MacRumors). To see it, visit the Apple Events website using Safari on your iPhone or iPad and tap “AR Experience,” point your camera at a wall, and you’ll get a colorful animated logo with June 6th, 2023 — the WWDC keynote date — printed inside.

Apple’s mixed reality headset is expected to be the biggest announcement at this year’s WWDC.

At the exact same time as Microsoft’s Build developer conference kicked off, the folks at Apple released schedule details for their own developer event, WWDC.

The updated page also has a small embedded video that, if you look at it with a designer’s eye, either shows a clear lens moving over the 3D logo, causing it to animate, or a pass-through transition. Our list of anticipated announcements has been adjusted accordingly.

Next year’s iPhone 16 Pro display will jump from 6.1 inches (iPhone 15 Pro) to 6.3 inches, while the Pro Max will jump from 6.7 (iPhone 15 Pro Max) to 6.9 inches, say analysts Kuo and Young.

Kuo says the extra space will make room for periscope lenses with better zoom performance, also expected on this year’s iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Apple’s so-called “Reality Pro” AR/VR headset that could cost as much as $3,000 is said to be running on an operating system called xrOS — a stylized wordmark for its “extended reality OS” that Apple wants to own. Seems like a solid bet at this point, but we’ll know for sure when WWDC kicks off on June 5th.

MacRumors got ahold of a research note from supply chain analyst Jeff Pu at Haitong International Securities suggesting a new 48MP sensor stack for the camera in these non-Pro phones will lead to production issues.

MacRumors notes Pu was the first to claim that “design issues” would keep iPhone 15 Pro models from switching to solid-state buttons, which leaks and other analysts have backed up since then.

Palmer Luckey who, as the primary inventor of the Oculus Rift, should know a thing or two about VR headsets, tweeted out his one-line approval ahead of its expected unveiling on June 5th.

Then again, Luckey’s also a documented shitposter and troll with a sometimes bad goatee who failed to make VR an Apple-sized success while at Facebook, so.

The Verge’s 2015 Apple Watch review:

Glances also feel like they have enormous untapped potential.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman today: 

The new widgets system on the Apple Watch will be a combination of the old watchOS Glances system and the style of widgets that were introduced in iOS 14 on the iPhone. The plan is to let users scroll through a series of different widgets — for activity tracking, weather, stock tickers, calendar appointments and more — rather than having them launch apps.

We’ll see when WWDC kicks off on June 5th.

Just when you thought that rumors of a higher-end 27-inch Apple Studio Display had been killed off, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo resurrects them. The noted supply-chain sleuth says it’ll arrive with Mini LED technology and “thinner panel thickness, a narrower bezel, and extended product lifespan” in “2024 or early 2025.”

9to5Mac says it’s gotten more details on the iPhone 15 Pro via a “detailed CAD” file and other sources, and it’s showing us what the upcoming phone could look like. We’ve heard a lot of the rumors before — titanium frame, USB-C, thinner bezels, a great new color — but the renders really bring this story to life.

Well-connected supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says mass production for Apple’s rumored headset has been pushed back and forecasts shipping numbers this year of 200k to 300k units instead of 500,000 or so.

Kuo suggests the change is tied to a lack of optimism about the launch and “uncertainty” about a WWDC reveal — echoing a recent New York Times report — and while I don’t know if that’s the case, I’m sure there will be more rumors before the show starts on June 5th.