Benjamin Mayo

From director Matthew Vaughn, the new spy thriller movie Argylle is now streaming on Apple TV+, Apple’s streaming service for original TV shows and movies.

The film features a star-studded cast including Bryce Dallas Howard, Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson, Bryan Cranston, Dua Lipa and more. It’s a twisty action spy narrative which sees author Elly Conway (played by Howard) wrapped up in espionage plot of her own design.

Apple is alerting users to a new instance of an identified mercenary spyware attack on the iPhone. Possible victims have been sent an email from Apple describing how the attack could “remotely compromise the iPhone”. Victims are being notified in India and 91 additional countries, via Reuters.

Mercenary attacks of this nature typically cost millions of dollars, and are often useless once discovered by security researchers and patched by iOS security updates. They are often believed to be state-sponsored, due to the high cost of development to craft such complex and sophisticated attacks. However, in a notable change of language, Apple no longer says this explicitly in its threat notifications.

In the latest edition of Bloomberg’s Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman reports that he is hearing Apple is gearing up to launch the new iPad Pro and iPad Air during the week of May 6.

The launch will include new 11-inch and 13-inch OLED iPad Pro models, a larger 12.9-inch iPad Air, as well as refreshed Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil accessories.

The AI boom has sprung up a mini-economy for content repositories, which AI companies want access to in order to train their models.

Companies like OpenAI initially trained their models by scraping data from the web. However, with the legal overhang of copyright looming, companies are looking to strike deals to formally license content going forward. Apple is one such participant. Reuters reports that Apple struck a deal to license millions of images owned by Shutterstock, a stock image site.

Update: More new iPad model identifiers are being registered; this time ‘A2898’ and ‘A2899’. That makes for a total of four, possibly reflecting two sizes of iPad Pro and iPad Air each.

As spotted by 91mobiles, two new iPad model identifiers have been registered on the Indian BIS certification database. It’s been a long time since new iPad model identifiers have been introduced as Apple last released a new iPad model almost eighteen months ago, the biggest gap ever between Apple tablet generations.

The database unfortunately does not really reveal any other details about the products, but they likely correspond to either the upcoming iPad Pro or iPad Air models. Bloomberg previously reported that Apple is readying new OLED iPad Pro and iPad Air models for an early May debut.

Colin Farrell stars in a new drama series ‘Sugar‘, streaming now on Apple TV+. Farrell plays the titular John Sugar, who is a private detective tasked with investigating the mysterious disappearance of Olivia Siegel, the daughter of a famous Hollywood producer.

The series takes much of its style and flair from the neo-noir film genre. The standard mystery plot takes a wild turn about halfway through the series, which may prove divisive. At least right now, Sugar is critically acclaimed with 87% on Rotten Tomatoes …

Today, Apple is releasing its first ever sports film shot in Immersive Video format, which gives Apple Vision Pro users an engrossing 180-degree 3D video experience with Spatial Audio.

The short film features highlights from the 2023 Major League Soccer Cup playoffs. Apple Vision Pro owners can watch the film for free in the TV app, beginning at 6 PM Pacific Time today.

Alongside the WWDC 2024 announcement, Apple has refreshed the apple.com homepage. The updated look features a minor design change with the use of rounded rectangle shapes for the ‘learn more’ and ‘buy’ buttons on the various product tiles.

More significantly, there’s an entirely new row at the bottom of the featured products grid. Below the carousel for TV+ originals, there’s a new slider featuring content from Apple’s other content services: Apple Music, Apple Arcade and Apple Fitness+.

In today’s edition of Bloomberg’s Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman writes that users should expect updates to the iPhone home screen as part of iOS 18. Although light on details, he says iOS 18 will make the home screen “more customizable”. Update: MacRumors says one of the changes will mean that iPhone users will be able to place app icons freely on the grid, making gaps on the screen possible for the first time.

Apple apparently believes iOS 18 will be its biggest update ever. AI will be a key focus, with artificial intelligence powered features integrated across the operating system. Apple may also integrate chatbot functionality via Google’s Gemini.

On the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, Apple finally got rid of the Lightning port and replaced it with USB-C. This opens up a whole new world of convenience of connecting accessories and peripherals. The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max go one step further, as the USB-C port on the pro models supports USB-3 speeds, enabling up to 10 Gbps data transfer speeds.

USB-C makes it easy to connect displays, external storage, cameras, and charge using the same cable as all your other devices. Here’s what you can do with your new iPhone and its shiny new port …

Earlier this week, news broke that Apple was in talks with Google to license its Gemini models to be used to power some generative AI features in the upcoming version of iOS, iOS 18, for the iPhone. It was also said to have spoken with OpenAI about a possible deal.

Today, the Wall Street Journal says Apple also held talks with Baidu, to license its models. This would likely be intended to serve AI requests to Apple customers in China, as Chinese law requires models to be approved by its regulator before they are allowed to be used.

We’ve heard a lot recently about how the EU commission has been cracking down on big tech companies like Apple, with the Digital Markets Act causing sweeping changes to how the iPhone works, at least in the EU.

But stateside, Apple is also facing regulatory pressure. Bloomberg reports today that the Department of Justice is readying a formal lawsuit against Apple to be filed as soon as tomorrow. The suit will claim Apple broke antitrust laws by restricting access to iPhone software and hardware features.

Via Mark Gurman in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Apple suppliers are gearing up to begin mass production of the new AirPods, starting in May. AirPods 3 will be replaced by a new lineup of two models.

The new AirPods models represent a new two tier lineup for the non-Pro buds. They will both get an updated design, improved fit and charge via USB-C. The higher-end of the pair will also sport active noise cancellation and Find My locating for the case, similar to AirPods Pro.

Masters of the Air concludes today with episode nine, the finale of Apple TV+’s hit limited series from the creators of Band of Brothers and The Pacific.

To celebrate the release, Apple has also dropped a new 1-hour documentary special entitled The Bloody Hundredth, which reveals more about the real stories of the 100th Bomb Group. You can stream it now on Apple TV+.

You won’t need an MLS Season Pass subscription to watch soccer this weekend. Apple has announced that all matches on March 16 and March 17 will be available to watch for free on the Apple TV app.

Usually, Apple has a couple free games each weekend for non-subscribers, but making the whole weekend free is not the norm. An active subscription to MLS Season Pass (available monthly or $99 per season) is usually needed to tune in to all MLS games with no blackouts or geographic restrictions.

Apple didn’t win the streaming rights for the Eras Tour movie, but it has collaborated to promote tomorrow’s launch on Disney+.

The App Store app is currently featuring an exclusive never-before-seen clip from the film: you can watch it here. The clip is a snippet of the song ‘cardigan’, which is new addition to the streaming version of the movie.

Apple is said to be testing an AI-powered ads platform with a select group of partners, via Business Insider.

The AI tool chooses where to place ads in the various App Store promoted ad placement slots. Right now, this is seemingly being used to improve advertiser campaign performance for App Store Search Ads. However, Business Insider speculates the technology could eventually be used elsewhere as Apple gradually expands its offering of ad-supported services.