Greetings to one and all. Apple had their annual September announcements. I’m going to tell you about them. I will attempt to be entertaining.
THE USUAL: NEW OS. MAYBE UPGRADE, MAYBE NOT
But first: Guess what? It’s new OS time. iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 are here. (macOS 27 is also called macOS Golden Gate.) It’s habitual for me to tell you to not upgrade right at first, and that still stands, but we’re gonna try something different this time, since I write these newsletters irregularly. It goes like this:
- Generally speaking, wait until November 1. If I haven’t sent out a “don’t do it” message because something serious has revealed itself, consider it ok. And you can always ask me.
- But, if you already upgraded, intentionally or automatically, that’s fine. If there are bugs, they’ll (probably) get fixed in time, and maybe you won’t come across them anyway.
- Or, if you are champing at the bit to upgrade, or are just annoyed by Apple’s nagging, go for it. Past major versions have had their share of bugs, but most got fixed over time. 27 has been out for a week or two, and it too has some bugs, so it depends on your risk tolerance.
- If you’re on iOS/iPadOS 26 (check under Settings > General > About), go to Settings > General > Software Update, and update to version 26.7. (If you instead want 27, and see that option at the bottom of your screen, go for it; at some point in the near future, it will be the only option if your device is compatible.) If you’re on iOS/iPadOS 18 or lower, then definitely upgrade to 27, or the latest your device offers.
- If you’re on macOS Sequoia 15.x (check under Apple Menu -> About This Mac), in Apple Menu > System Settings > General > Software Update, either update to the latest Sequoia version (15.8), or, if you don’t want to be two systems behind, upgrade to 27, if your Mac offers it to you. If you’re on a version of macOS older than Sequoia (meaning 14.x or lower), then definitely upgrade to 27, or the latest your Mac offers.
- On a Mac, before you upgrade, I recommend you have a current Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner backup, or double-check that your Backblaze/CrashPlan/Carbonite cloud backup is current. (We can help check if you need.)
- On an iPhone or iPad, before you upgrade, go to Settings > (your name) > iCloud > iCloud Backup, and verify that you have a current backup.
- If you’re just not sure and don’t know what to do, shoot me an email.
In case you’re worried about the new version making your old iPhone perform poorly, anecdotal reports say that iOS 27 actually makes some older iPhones perform better than they did on iOS 26. So if your iPhone 13 mini will have to be pried from your cold, dead fingers, but you were starting to have doubts because it’s been sluggish, you might wanna first see how it, or whatever other older model you have, performs on 27.
And, if your battery drains quickly or suddenly shuts off, remember that Apple will replace it for a fee, or for free if you have AppleCare, provided the Battery Health area in Settings reports a Maximum Capacity of 79% or under. (Some iPads don’t show this, unfortunately.) If you have handset coverage with your cell provider, you might check with them, too. Also, by design, iPhones may run more slowly, at least for certain operations, if a battery has weakened, to prevent sudden shutdowns.
Also, if you’re still rocking an Intel-processor Mac (you can check under Apple Menu -> About This Mac, and see whether the chip/processor says “Intel”), you’re not gonna get macOS 27. Apple has cut you off; no Intel-based Mac can advance past version 26, and many top out at 15, 14, or an earlier version. If 15 or 26 is as far as yours can go, you’ll still get security updates for the time being. But, also, it’s probably time for you to think about getting a new Mac. It’ll really be a huge upgrade in performance, and for a laptop, in battery life as well. Ask us if you’re not sure.
Have I lost you yet? That was the most boring part of all of this, but I had to tell you.
Ok next: I’ve been writing these things for a long time, and I need to mix it up, so, I might go for a little less comprehensiveness and a little more personal history or musings and a little more casualness of tone. Hope you vibe with that.
Can we get started already? Bet you thought I’d never ask!
APPLE ANNOUNCEMENTS
So, way back in yonder day, Apple used to participate in Macworld Expo, where they’d make product announcements to cheering throngs, whom I counted myself among, ngl. After Apple pulled out, preferring to control their own schedule, they would stream live product announcement events. They were progressively more dull in the Tim Cook era, but they were at least live.
And then this pandemic you might remember happened, so they did something reasonably clever: rather than a live announcement with live demos, they made a slick video, filmed at the world’s largest donut, Apple Park, to announce one of their most important and exciting developments in a decade: putting processors of their own design into Mac computers, which wildly exceeded everyone’s performance expectations even in their very first M1 models. And then Apple stayed with that format long after we took our masks off, and these premade videos got pretty samey and decidedly less exciting than the first.
So I have to say with a bit of disappointment that John Ternus, Apple’s new CEO, made his debut in another one of these identically produced videos, posed exactly as Tim Cook had been posed, speaking in the same cadence, if a bit more youthfully. (Tim “resigned upward” to a newly created Executive Chairman position, whatever that means.)
Now, to be fair to the guy, he’d been CEO for less than two weeks and had undoubtedly filmed his bit before even that. And the last thing institutional investors want is some kind of radical departure out of the gate.
But that show just had no flavor, and flavor is what Apple has to offer that others don’t. Nobody wants an Apple that feels corporate. Someone over there has got to have some sense of showmanship (I always thought Jobs should be replaced with three people: a behind-the-scenes CEO, a behind-the-scenes visionary, and an entertaining public face). Gimme today’s version of white iPod headphones on dancing silhouettes, or “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC”. You know, fun stuff.
I get that it’s hard to be edgy when you’re a trillion-dollar corporation and want to stay that way; risks become riskier. But Apple made their bones by being leaders, and leaders take risks. So, in the future, I hope for more entertaining product announcements (and ads), and some legit brilliant products.
iPhone Duo
Ok, so, what about those products? Well. Ternus’ big splash was the iPhone Duo, an iPhone that you can fold in half when you want to use it like a phone (closed, it has roughly the dimensions of a passport, which is to say shorter and wider than a standard iPhone), but you can also open it and have a great big screen on the inside. It’s an ultra-portable iPad that’s also a fully functioning phone, if you will.
I’m likely not buying one of these, because my iPhone is too big and heavy as it is, but I do see the appeal. I’m not sure how broad an appeal it is, and I’m not sure how exciting an announcement it is. AirPods were exciting, because they were so seamlessly executed. The M1 chip was also exciting, because the ARM technology it was based on was unproven in a modern mainstream desktop or laptop computer, and few (including me) had imagined Apple could pull off such excellent performance out of the gate while also causing minimal disruption to users of existing Intel-based software.
Anyway, if no one had ever thought of a foldable phone before, we’d probably be going ooh and ahh, they’re so creative in Cupertino! But Samsung’s been making foldable phones for years. So, yes, Apple may have done it better (I don’t even know, since I’ve never spent even a minute with a folding phone). It wouldn’t be the first time; the iPod was a better MP3 player; the iPhone was a better smartphone. These were not new product categories.
Samsung has not set the world on fire with their folding phones; they’re expensive, they’re known for a visible and tactile “crease” down the middle, and it might just not be a product that most people feel they need: a phone that can transform into a miniature tablet. I have no doubt that some people love it, and it’s possible that I’ll fall in love when I see a Duo for myself. Apple claims to have minimized the presence of the crease, to have built the device to last, and to have tuned iOS to smoothly go back and forth between the device being closed or open.
It’s also possible that this iteration of the Duo is effectively a functioning prototype, and it will be the next-gen redesign that really slaps, as was the case with the first AirPods, and the first iPhone, and the first iPad, and the first iMac.
If you’re an early adopter who doesn’t mind a $1,999 price tag (though Apple was keen to say that they’re going to offer excellent trade-in values; I’m sure they don’t want to tell Wall Street they didn’t sell any of the things), and the idea of the Duo appeals to you, and you’ve got room in your purse or pocket for its extra bulk, I mean, I’m not gonna tell you not to get one. Just know that you’re buying a first-gen. Some first-gens are great. Some are just first-gens.
iPhone Duo goes on pre-order October 16, and general sale October 23.
iPhone 18 Pro
Oh yeah, remember the non-folding iPhone? There’s a new one, but, departing from recent tradition, they only introduced the Pro and Pro Max models of the 18 line, with the standard model, or models, rumored to be released early next year. For the time being, the 17, 17e, Air, and 16 continue to be sold in Apple’s dependably bewildering maze of SKUs.
As per usual, the big deal is a faster processor (A20 Pro), and a better camera. This year’s thing is actual physical aperture control in the main (1x) lens, which, I remember from high school photography, allows more or less light to help with proper exposure, and greater or shallower depth of field in the image. It’s not gonna replace a Hasselblad, but it does represent a benefit for real photographers, and for everyone else who doesn’t care about such details, still yields better day-to-day pictures.
18 Pro has the same shape as the 17 Pro, but new colors (goodbye, Cosmic Orange), and Apple claims, via improved software efficiency and a larger “vapor chamber”, that the 18 Pro Max has the longest battery life of any iPhone. iPhone 18 Pro, keeping up with our inflationary times, and particularly in tech where the cost of memory and storage chips has gone through the roof because of their demand in AI data centers, starts at $1,199 (up $100 from the 17 Pro).
If you’re due for a new phone, be aware that while Apple does offer trade-ins for your old phone, your carrier probably offers a much better promo incentive. I just replaced my 13 Pro with a 17 Pro a few months ago, and the Verizon promo basically made it free as long as I keep the phone for three years. Even better, you can now access carrier promos directly via Apple, if you don’t feel like dealing with Verizon or AT&T or T-Mobile or what have you.
If you need help choosing a phone or making sense of a promo or deciding whether or not it’s time to upgrade, give us a shout. If you’ve got a 13 series or older, it’s entirely worth considering, and if you’ve got a 12 series or older, then that much more so.
AI
Speaking of AI, Apple is going to take another stab at it, after embarrassing themselves with the crapfest of Apple Intelligence introduced with the iPhone 16 line. So, the iPhone 18 Pro’s A20 Pro processor is designed in part for Siri AI, which is what they’re calling their second stab at LLM technology, though they’re going to roll out the features slowly. As before, they’re positioning themselves in a funny “maybe not as good as others, but privacy-respecting” stance. We’ll have to wait to see whether it proves useful or annoying. (It also remains to be seen whether Apple ends up laughing all the way to the bank because they’re the most conspicuous player to not make ungodly expenditures on AI investment, or whether instead everyone laughs at them because they can’t get it right, again.)
AirPods 5
Here’s a product I’m actually excited about. Apple has long maintained two AirPods lines: plain and Pro. My AirPods Pro 2 (now succeeded by the even better 3) are one of my favorite products ever. But, as of AirPods 5, the plain version is not so plain; $129, which is about half the price of the Pro, will still get you noise cancelling, which I find wildly impressive, even if not quite as effective, without the ear-sealing fit that the Pro models have. There is also an $149 model which offers longer battery life, a better stem control which allows you to adjust volume by swiping (I do this a lot with my Pros), and wireless charging. AirPods 5 are a practically perfect gift. They may also be appealing to those who specifically don’t like the sensation of ear sealing that the Pro models have.
Watches
There’s also a new Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4. I don’t even know what to tell you about them because I’m not personally invested in them — I’m just not a watch wearer of any kind — but if you have any specific questions, hit me and I’ll find out for you. They’ve got better chips and new watchbands and better health sensors and…well, you can go read their website for yourself. Some people really love their Apple Watch, particularly as a health tracker, so if you’re one of them, you might want to check it out.
Mac mini and Mac Studio with M6, M5 Pro, M5 Max, M5 Ultra
Apple didn’t mention these at all during their announcements, but they’re absolutely worth paying attention to. Just last month, Apple announced an updated Mac Studio, their top of the line desktop computer, with M5 Max or M5 Ultra processors, for those with demanding workloads.
The Studio’s smaller cousin, the Mac mini, was also refreshed, with your choice of an M6 or an M5 Pro processor, which is actually a fairly confusing decision to make, as each comes with tradeoffs, though the M6 is much less expensive. (There is no M6 Pro, Max, or Ultra, and rumors are there won’t be.)
The Mac mini plus the pricey but lovely 27-inch Studio Display is effectively Apple’s replacement for the 27-inch iMac, if you’re still rocking one of those. You can also pair a mini or Studio with any manufacturer’s display.
If nothing else, the announcement of these products means you’ll hopefully be able to buy them; the previous Mac mini (with an M4 or M4 Pro chip) had months-long backorders because people were buying them in quantity, even chaining multiples together, for AI agent workstations; and generally better-configured models became unavailable because of worldwide memory and storage chip shortages for consumer devices (they’re all getting rerouted to the data centers everyone loves so much). But more on that another day.
Mac mini M6 starts at $899; Mac mini M5 Pro starts at $1,699. Mac Studio M5 Max starts at $2,499, and Mac Studio M5 Ultra starts at $5,499.
If you use Thunderbolt or USB4 devices, be aware that the M6 only supports Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 (up to 40 Gbps), while the M5 Pro supports Thunderbolt 5 (up to 120 Gbps) and USB4 (up to 40 Gbps). For the Mac Studio, M5 Max and Ultra support Thunderbolt 5 / USB4 v2.0 (up to 120 Gbps). Only the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra offers Thunderbolt / USB4 on its front ports, while the Max model and both mini models only offer USB 3.2 gen 2 (10 Gbps) on their front ports.
C’EST TOUT
And there you have it: Apple announcements. Apple is rumored to be coming out with many more products in the coming months, so, as they do, I’ll tell you what I think. Overall, these seem like solid products: nothing I’m specifically unimpressed by, though also nothing I’m blown away by. I’m withholding judgment on the iPhone Duo until I can play with one.
As always, if you have any questions about these announcements or anything else, holler at us.
(September 2026)