Apple

Apple

Apple has clawed back a bit of ground in its legal fight with Epic Games that could have wide-reaching consequences for all app developers. Today, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals mostly upheld a previous contempt ruling regarding fees Apple levied on third-party payment systems. However, the judges did decide to reverse the order that Apple cannot charge any commissions on those external payments, which was one of the company's main arguments in this ongoing debate.

For the U.S. market, OpenAI's ChatGPT topped the ranks of free iPhone apps (not including games) with the most installs in 2025. The AI app was followed by Threads, Google, TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail and then Google's Gemini. ChatGPT made it to No. 4 last year, but the top spot was taken by Chinese shopping app Temu.

The first iOS 26.2 beta came out in early November, followed by beta 2 a couple of weeks later. Things have now progressed past the beta stage and Apple is seeding the second release candidate for iOS 26.2 (the first one came out a week ago).

Working together, the AIM alliance developed a single-chip, POWER-based processor dubbed the PowerPC. In addition, they also developed two reference platforms for the new processor: the first was dubbed PReP (PowerPC reference platform), and its follow-on was CHRP (pronounced "chirp", common hardware reference platform), which incorporated Open Firmware. The "common" in CHRP's name referred to the fact that the platform was intended to run a variety of operating systems on its PowerPC processor, including the Mac operating system, Microsoft Windows NT,

Apple's app of the year suggests the tech giant was all about helping iPhone users get organized in 2025. Tiimo is an AI-powered visual planner that's marketed towards those with neurodivergent brains. With to-do lists, daily tasks, and reminders, Tiimo mixes an AI chatbot with a classic planner. It's free to download and use, with a premium version available for $10 a month.

Apple on Thursday released the list of its 2025 App Store Award winners, recognising 17 apps and games of the year across the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV categories, for their design, innovation, user experience and cultural impact. AI planner and to-do app Tiimo emerged as the best app on iPhone in 2025, while The Pokemon Company's Pokemon TCG Pocket has been awarded the iPhone Game of the Year title.

They're not called the AI talent wars for nothing. With Big Tech firms scrambling to attract top talent, executives and artificial intelligence researchers have done a lot of job-hopping this year, and Apple employees were no exception. The company has lost over a dozen employees who worked on its AI projects, from executives to scientists to engineers, and even its AI chief, John Giannandrea, who announced this week he was stepping down from the role.

Apple Arcade subscribers can look forward to an eclectic selection of new games today, as ninja action, sects education, and a trip to Bikini Bottom have all been added to the service. The main event game this month is Cult of the Lamb, a delightful blend of roguelike dungeon-crawling and base-building. If you haven't tried it out yet, Apple Arcade

The M1 chip is the real MVP here. I can hop between Slack, Google Docs, Spotify, Zoom, and an embarrassing number of Chrome tabs without a single hiccup or buffer wheel. It's also genuinely shocking how quiet this thing is. There's no fan, so it stays completely silent, even when I'm running big files or editing photos. And the battery? I'm convinced it runs on magic because this MacBook Air easily lasts me through an entire workday.

A total of 1.25 billion smartphones will be shipped in 2025, which represents a 1.5% increase compared to the figures for 2024. The latest International Data Corporation (IDC) report reflects an updated forecast that is reportedly driven by Apple's continued success with the iPhone 17 series. Cupertino is now forecasted to push over 247 million iPhone 17 series units in 2025, driven by favourable demand factors like an accelerated push in the holiday quarter, alongside growing demand in emerging markets and in China.

Apple just lost a top design talent. Meta has hired Alan Dye, who was the head of Apple's human interface design team. The company is filling his position with Stephen Lemay, who CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg "has played a key role in the design of every major Apple interface since 1999." Before being poached by Meta to become its chief design officer, Dye worked at Apple since 2006, where he oversaw projects including Liquid Glass and Vision Pro.

Through today only, new customers on select Unlimited plans can get an , an , and an , all for free -- no trade-in required. Bought separately, those devices would cost over $2,000, so this is quite the deal. (T-Mobile is running a similar bundle deal right now, too.) For the service, you'll need to either purchase a new smartphone line on Verizon's Unlimited Ultimate plan , which is $90 a month with Auto Pay enabled for a single line, or on the , which is $80 a month with Auto Pay enabled for a single line.

I am a freelance writer who works from home. I like to make the most of my remote job by traveling, but I work from my desk for at least two weeks a month. Earlier this year, I realized that my laptop wasn't cutting it for me, and I purchased the , which I consider to be the best value-for-money Apple device.

On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge's Victoria Song and Allison Johnson join David to come up with a definitive ranking of Apple's best gadgets. ( We did this with Google's gadgets a few months ago, in case you missed it.) In this case, "best" is defined quite broadly: it includes a product's inherent quality, the quality of its competition, its cultural and economic relevance, the size of its target market, and many other things. Best is not an exact science.

Apple is not planning to comply with an order from the Indian government directing phone manufacturers to preload a state-backed cybersecurity app, according to . Industry sources tell Reuters that Apple plans to tell India's government that they don't comply with requests like this due to privacy and security concerns. However, Apple won't go to court or "take a public stand" over the order.

Should cloud industry supply constraints sustain, see management expectation for doubling AWS capacity by '27 supporting multi-quarter revenue acceleration. Estimate new capacity could add $150B in annual revenue, driving material upside potential to '27/'28 estimates,