❌

Normal view

You Can Download iOS 27 Beta 5 Update for iPhone & iPad Now

10 August 2026 at 21:27

Apple has released iOS 27 beta 5 for iPhone, along with iPadOS 27 beta 5 for iPad. If you’re currently running the developer beta you will find the latest update available right away, and typically public beta testers find the same build version available soon after as well. The emphasis of iOS 27 and iPadOS ... Read More

The post You Can Download iOS 27 Beta 5 Update for iPhone & iPad Now appeared first on OS X Daily.

How to Downgrade from iOS 27 Beta to iOS 26

30 July 2026 at 01:09

The iOS 27 beta has overall been a very positive experience for many beta testers, but if you have installed iOS 26 beta onto your iPhone or iPad and decided that it’s no longer for you, perhaps due to some incompatibility, critical bug, or other issue, then you can downgrade your iPhone from iOS 27 ... Read More

The post How to Downgrade from iOS 27 Beta to iOS 26 appeared first on OS X Daily.

Apple Upgrade

28 July 2026 at 20:20

Apple (Hacker News):

Apple today announced Apple Upgrade, a new product leasing program provided by Klarna for iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac, and iPad available on the Apple Store online, in the Apple Store app, and at Apple Store locations in the United States.

[…]

Apple Upgrade offers 12- and 24-month leasing options for iPhone and Apple Watch, and 24- and 36-month leasing options for Mac and iPad. Leasing prices start as low as $17.99 per month for iPhone, $11.99 for Apple Watch, $24.99 for Mac, and $11.99 for iPad.

The $17.99/month gets you a base model iPhone 17e for 24 months. This is a total of $431.76 vs. $599 for buying a new one today, but then you have to make a decision:

At the end of the lease term, customers can upgrade their device to the latest generation, purchase it with a one-time payment, or simply return it and exit the program.

I used to get a new phone every other year, but I kept my iPhone 12 mini for three years and will likely keep my 15 Pro for four years. In addition to making it easier to buy phones without the up-front payment, Apple is probably hoping this will encourage more customers to get back on the two-year cycle. Given the choice between continuing a small monthly payment and getting a new phone or making a larger payment to keep their old phone, many may opt to upgrade.

Juli Clover:

The payoff amount is the difference between what was paid during the leasing period and the retail price of the device, minus any remaining trade-in credits. Klarna is not charging a fee for the leasing program, so an iPhone that’s $1,099 can be leased and then purchased for $1,099 with no extra cost beyond taxes.

I guess this means that, for a bit of hassle, you can essentially buy the device for the list price at 0% interest.

Lease participants can opt to end a lease early and return a device, but Apple says there may be “substantial fees” for terminating a lease before the end of the term.

[…]

Customers must upgrade, end the lease, or purchase the device at the end of the lease term. If that doesn’t happen, the lease converts to a month-to-month lease for up to six months.

[…]

Damage to an iPhone, losing an iPhone, or having an iPhone stolen could incur fees.

Aisha Malik:

The rollout of the program comes as Apple has been struggling with supply chain issues related to “RAMageddon,” which refers to the industry-wide shortage of memory chips that is driving up the price of hardware. As a result, Apple recently announced price hikes for its Mac and iPad lineups, sparing the iPhone for now. The new Upgrade program seems to be Apple’s answer to making those higher prices more manageable for consumers.

Customers can manage their lease directly in the Klarna app, where they can view their billing schedule and track remaining payments.

With the launch of the new Upgrade program, Apple is discontinuing its existing in-house financing and installment programs in the U.S., which include the iPhone Upgrade Program and iPhone Payments.

John Voorhees:

For iPhones, you have to have a carrier and can’t use a prepaid plan.

[…]

For iPads, the starting prices range from $12.99/month to $24.99/month, Macs range from starting prices of $24.99/month to $48.99/month, and the Apple Watch ranges from starting prices of $11.99/month to $47.03/month. But again, these are just starting prices. You can configure a fully loaded 16-inch MacBook Pro that is just under $230/month, and it won’t include AppleCare.

As a point of comparison, under the current program that is being discontinued, I pay $69.50/month for an iPhone 17 Pro Max, but I have a 512GB model, so my lease price for the same phone would be $40.83/month, significantly lower, but keep in mind that doesn’t include AppleCare+, which would add $13.99/month or $139/year for that iPhone. On a monthly basis, that puts a new iPhone 17 Pro Max with 512GB of storage and AppleCare+ at just under $55/month. Still a superior deal, but not nearly as good as the landing page might initially lead you to believe.

[…]

If you lease accessories for your device, those don’t have to be returned. Why? Presumably because they have no value to Apple or Klarna.

Marcus Mendes:

9to5Mac can now confirm that code found in the iOS 27 beta appears to reveal a broader system for managing a financed iPhone, including the ability to restrict apps and services when payments are missed.

The code describes a system called App Managed Features, which allows an authorized financing or provider app to enroll an iPhone and perform ongoing status checks.

If the contract is no longer in good standing, Apple’s system services can place the iPhone in “Restricted Mode,” which blocks access to most apps until the payment or contract issue is resolved, while keeping a small set of apps available.

I bet there are some governments that would love to commandeer that for their own purposes.

Finally, the new framework also introduces a new type of activation lock called “Partner Finance Lock,” which is meant to prevent users from erasing, reselling, or stripping a restricted device for parts.

Previously:

Update (2026-07-29): Emma Roth:

Apple says it won’t limit the capabilities of devices leased through its new Upgrade program if you miss a payment. In an emailed statement to The Verge, Apple spokesperson Brian Bumbery says, “There will be no restricted mode and/or there will be no limitations put on device functionality due to missed payments or default with the Apple Upgrade program.”

So then what is the code that 9to5Mac found for?

Marcus Mendes:

One possibility is that it was developed for financing programs offered by carriers, retailers, or other partners outside Apple Upgrade, potentially including markets where device restrictions are already used to enforce installment agreements.

See also: Mac Power Users, TidBITS, MacRumors, Slashdot.

Update (2026-07-30): Ryan Christoffel:

Here’s what every eligible product costs with Apple Upgrade.

Emma Roth:

Here’s a breakdown of how much you’d pay for the devices included in the Apple Upgrade program, as well as how much more you’d pay to purchase the devices outright at the end of your lease[…]

[…]

Klarna doesn’t say what will happen if you don’t pay the outstanding balance.

[…]

During the lease, Klarna owns your device. You’re responsible for any damage, and will get charged a fee if you don’t return the device in “good condition.” That’s why Apple is encouraging customers to sign up for an AppleCare subscription that could drive up the cost of your lease even more.

[…]

Apple also notes that you’ll have to pay an early termination fee if you want to return the device before your lease ends or if you want to upgrade early.

Eyes:

If you lose the leased phone you have to pay Klarna for the phone plus early lease cancellation fees.

D. Griffin Jones:

The Apple Card Monthly Installments aren’t going away, so I’ll keep using that.

[…]

When you finance using the Apple Card Monthly Installments, you pay a fixed amount to own your device. There are no savings here — aside from the 3% cashback — the monthly payment is the purchase price divided by either 12 or 24 months.

John Gruber:

When you lease an iPhone through Apple Upgrade, you need a cellular account on one of the big three U.S. carriers: AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon. That kind of stinks, and I’m not quite sure I understand why.

Eyes:

The iPhone upgrade program always required it. For a time you could do Apple Card installments without a carrier if you bought it online but never in store. I assume there is carrier pressure to tie the phones to the carriers. Activating iPhones on carriers was a key metric at the Apple Store.

Previously:

Update (2026-08-03): John Gruber (Mastodon):

Credit-risk assessment is seemingly part of it. There’s a lot of fraud in iPhone purchases specifically and cell phone service generally. The big three carriers do a significant amount of risk assessment before letting you open a new postpaid account; that you have an active account with one of them is a signal that you’re not trying to lease an iPhone using phony credentials in order to sell it.

But the bigger reason is the complex nature of the contracts between Apple and each of the big three carriers.

iOS 26.6 and iPadOS 26.6

28 July 2026 at 20:20

Juli Clover (iOS/iPadOS release notes, security, enterprise, developer):

iOS 26.6 and iPadOS 26.6 include security fixes for the iPhone and iPad. The updates also optimize the Spotlight index in preparation for iOS 27 and iPadOS 27.

There are a lot of security fixes.

Rosyna Keller:

Yay, iOS 26.6 is out. And it fixes a privacy leak I filed in April that allowed malicious apps/Ad SDKs to track a user across apps.

Previously:

Update (2026-07-29): Kirk McElhearn:

Yesterday’s iOS update fixed the battery problem that I’ve had for the past couple of months. My iPhone 16 Pro Max would not make it a full day on a single charge.

iOS 26.6 Update Released for iPhone & iPad

27 July 2026 at 20:28

Apple has released iOS 26.6 for iPhone, along with iPadOS 26.6 for iPad. The software updates are focused mostly on security enhancements for the devices, and there is also some included preparations for the upcoming larger iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 releases coming later in the year. Separately, Apple has also released MacOS Tahoe 26.6 ... Read More

The post iOS 26.6 Update Released for iPhone & iPad appeared first on OS X Daily.

Apple Still Designated a Gatekeeper

9 July 2026 at 19:38

Tim Hardwick:

Apple’s challenge against the EU’s designation of its App Stores and iOS platform as “gatekeepers” was dismissed by Europe’s top court on Wednesday, reports Reuters.

[…]

The company also disputed the classification of iMessage as a number-independent interpersonal communications service, or NIICS, which would subject the app to EU telecoms rules. But the General Court said Apple’s actions regarding the iMessage service are inadmissible.

William Gallagher:

Back in 2023, Apple acknowledged that it qualified under the then-new definition of being what the EU called a gatekeeper service. But key to that is the size of the operation, and since 2024, Apple has been claiming it runs five smaller App Stores rather than one large one.

[…]

“Irrespective of the devices in question,” ruled the judges, “those stores have the same purpose, namely to connect app developers with end users in order to facilitate the distribution of software applications.”

Steve Dent:

Apple disagreed with the decision but didn’t say yet if it would appeal. “We firmly believe the DMA’s mandate goes beyond what is lawful and proportionate, threatening to erode decades of privacy and security protections we’ve built and leaving our users vulnerable to new risks,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement to multiple outlets. “We will continue advocating for the innovation and privacy our European customers deserve.”

Apple still has two cases pending with EU courts. The first is a challenge to the EU Commission’s decision last year forcing Apple to open iOS to third-party developers, and the second is an appeal against the €500 million fine imposed in April last year for anti-steering violations.

Previously:

iOS 26.5.2 and iPadOS 26.5.2

1 July 2026 at 21:05

Juli Clover (iOS/iPadOS release notes, security, no enterprise, no developer):

Apple told Reuters that it released the updates earlier than planned due to concerns about AI-assisted hacks.

Previously:

WWDC 2026 Links

17 June 2026 at 20:16

General:

Documentation:

Sessions:

Podcasts:

Previously:

No Siri AI in EU

10 June 2026 at 21:00

Apple (MacRumors):

Unfortunately, due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Apple will not be able to ship Siri AI in the European Union with the release of iOS 27 and iPadOS 27. Over the past several months, EU regulators did not accept any of Apple’s proposed solutions to bring Siri AI to the EU while safely supporting other virtual assistants.

[…]

EU users will be able to access Siri AI on macOS 27 and visionOS 27. Developers located in the EU will not be able to test or use the new Siri AI features for their apps on iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and watchOS 27.

[…]

According to EU regulators, the DMA requires Apple to give any AI system nearly unlimited access to a user’s device, as well as the ability to act on that access autonomously without a user’s ongoing visibility and control.

[…]

Apple designed a solution called Trusted System Agent — an intermediary that would allow virtual assistants to safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI for devices in the EU. Apple also shared a plan to launch Siri AI in the EU while gradually rolling out this new solution over an 18-month period. The European Commission said no. In fact, the European Commission did not agree to any of Apple’s proposals.

This phrasing is not very clear, perhaps intentionally so. Apple is trying to give the impression that it did all this extra work to meet the DMA’s requirements, and yet the EC rejected its proposals, so it’s their fault Siri AI isn’t shipping in the EU. But it looks like the crux is that the Trusted System Agent is currently vaporware. What the EC rejected is that Apple wanted to be able to ship Siri AI now on the promise of future openness. The TSA would actually be built during this 18-month window of exclusivity. It’s not surprising that the EU would reject that proposal. The App Store doesn’t approve apps that flout the guidelines but promise to comply later. It doesn’t even entertain proposals of the form, “If I built this would it be approved?”

European Commission (via Steve Troughton-Smith, Update: John Gruber, Mastodon):

So first, the decision not to roll out Siri AI in the EU is Apple’s and Apple’s only.

Because absolutely nothing in the DMA prohibits Apple from introducing new products in the EU.

What Apple is however not allowed to do, just like any other gatekeeper, is to close the market.

[…]

Apple simply made a request to the European Commission to be exempted from their interoperability obligations under the DA.

And this for at least 18 months on top of it. Guess what? That’s not an option.

Reuters (Hacker News):

Apple said it detailed its plans for Siri AI to EU regulators six months ago, along with a technical proposal to allow secure ​third-party access to that data.

“In essence, a commission that’s asking us to conduct a very risky experiment on many, ​many, many tens of millions of users,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s marketing chief, told reporters, “and we only want to ship these capabilities when we can do so safely.”

The EU said not to ship it without the TSA, yet Joswiak spins this as the EU asking Apple to be reckless? And if Apple wanted to ship them safely, why did it stop working on them?

William Gallagher:

Apple spoke of having spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours on changes to comply with the EU. In the new report, though, Apple now says that it no longer knows what to work on.

So currently none of its engineers are working on adapting Siri AI to meet the EU’s demands.

It seems like Apple isn’t taking this very seriously. They’re more interested in trying to score PR points by blaming the delay on the EC rather than on building something compliant. So I guess the EC was prescient not to grant an exemption based on the promise that they’d follow through with the TSA.

Kyle Howells:

However, do I think Apple should be made to open up that level of system access?

Honestly yes. They are worried about protecting my data. But it’s MINE. Me, the user.

Stick a big privacy prompt, maybe a system settings screen and reboot, but I want access to my data!

We can look to BrowserEngineKit to see how well it works out to introduce a trusted intermediate layer that Apple doesn’t itself rely on. And this seems like a much harder problem.

Kyle Howells:

Yeah, that privacy layer is a stupid [non] starter. “Find the place my friend said we should go swimming and give me directions”

The only way that query can work with an intermediary layer is if the AI asks that layer to do the searching for them and only gets the response back.

Except that basically kills the advantage of LLM agents & instead delegate all the ‘smart’ parts to some dumb on device model Apple makes.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-11): Amy Worrall:

I keep seeing people (usually Americans) confused by where the EU is coming from with Apple and the DMA, eg “how can they care about privacy but also demand AI companies can access your data?”

My read is, the EU’s starting point is that a gatekeeper cannot treat itself as inherently more trustworthy than any other company. So if anyone’s AI can access your data, including Apple’s, it’s not up to the gatekeeper to say “we trust ourselves but don’t trust other companies” and force that on users.

The users should get to choose who they trust. And I think Apple is trying to draw a different line than it says. It worries that AI could be hijacked to steal your passwords and photos. But you can already install apps that manage and access that data. You can also install apps that access your calendar and mail data, and these apps can incorporate AI. Such apps actually get more access than what the EC wants because they must communicate with your servers directly. I would rather let an AI search my downloaded e-mails than read/write to my IMAP server, but Apple is blocking that option. The actual line it’s drawing isn’t that AI can’t access your data but that (aside from iMessage) it can only access it via additional engineering work and additional hoops for users to enter credentials. It seems like what Apple really wants is to make it hard for anyone to compete with Siri.

Update (2026-06-12): Cory Birdsong:

I’m skeptical that Siri AI is even capable of being meaningfully private or secure. As far as I know there is no mitigation for prompt injection, as Matthew Green describes here.

If it has access to private information, is exposed to external input and can access the Internet then how can they meaningfully claim it’s private or secure?

John Gruber:

There’s a lot to unpack here, including more background information — and on-the-record statements — from a briefing Apple held Tuesday that I was invited to at Apple Park.

It’s frustrating that Apple has said so little on the record. They want to communicate that their “offers for compromise have been rejected,” but what exactly did they offer? Personally, I don’t think the TSA would be a very good solution because it would lock in both the limitations of Apple’s technology and their role as a gatekeeper. But Apple did not even say that the EC rejected the idea of the TSA, only that it rejected their proposal to violate the law for 18 months while building it.

But the bottom line is that Apple’s public statements regarding the DMA and the European Commission have never been this strident before.

[…]

Now, they’re a bit more on war footing. There’s a massive gulf between what Apple is willing to do with Siri AI in the EU and what the Commission is demanding from Apple for DMA compliance.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

The European Commission isn’t demanding anything, the law is demanding it. The laws have been in place for several years now, Apple is currently in default of the law on several fronts, and is fighting its existing fines.

When the Chinese government wanted access to user data, Apple complied, but when the EU parliament voted for their citizens to be able to choose how to share their own data, that put Apple on a “war footing.”

David Deller (Reddit):

There is some kind of irony in how Apple isn’t allowing Europe access to the new AI stuff; and meanwhile for the US, Apple is removing the setting for us to opt-out of it, effectively forcing it on us.

That’s how it is these days, huh? Either a government or a giant corporation makes our technology choices for us. We don’t get to choose for ourselves.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-17): John Gruber:

What exactly is the motivation for Apple and Google to engineer entirely separate systems for the EU to bring new features into compliance with the Commission’s broad interpretation of the DMA? Because if Apple doesn’t engineer a DMA-compliant version of Siri AI, iOS users in the EU will ... switch to Android, whose system-level AI was deemed noncompliant by the Commission a few months ago?

I briefly hoped that the DMA would lead to a sort of California effect for software, where products are designed for the stricter (more open, in this case) jurisdiction, and everyone else reaps the benefits, too, because that’s easier for companies than making separate versions of their products. But it turns out that Apple finds it well worth it to feature flag away the EU features it doesn’t want us to have, as well as the ones it doesn’t want to adapt for the DMA.

This doesn’t directly hurt Apple. It doesn’t force Apple to design, engineer, and ship a compliant EU-exclusive version of Siri AI that supports plug-and-play LLM back ends. It only hurts iPhone users who live in the EU, who are stuck with the old dumb version of Siri for the foreseeable future.

This demonstrates a market failure or legislative failure, depending on how you look at it. Both halves of the duopoly are in conflict with the law of the second largest economy in the word. Users will get a worse Siri, but this doesn’t bother Apple enough to do anything about it. Maybe the customers in the EU can be used as a bargaining chip. Neither Apple nor Google is worried that a competitor will come along with a compliant phone to challenge their dominance.

John Gruber:

Here we are two years later and I think the answer is more clear than ever which side of the continental divide is more fun.

Simon B. Støvring:

Gotta admit that as an EU citizen, I feel handicapped when it comes to brainstorming ideas to utilize Foundation Models.

Like, if I were to build a new app around them, it’s difficult to gauge if this is something Siri AI does out of the box when it isn’t available to me.

And unlike Apple, I intend to build software for the entire world.

Jack Wellborn:

Apple is acting out of greed and spite (see their hairbrained fee structures for alternative marketplaces as an example), but also yes, the DMA and enforcement thereof seems like a particularly difficult and capricious regulatory dynamic.

[…]

Those arguing that Apple is acting purely out of spite seem to suggest there is some obvious solution for iPhone Mirroring that would satisfy the interoperability mandate, but they never go into what that obvious solution is because they don’t know. They don’t know because I would guess no one does, not even Apple and certainly not the European Commission.

As far as I can tell, the European Commission doesn’t see it as their responsibility to help gatekeepers design features ahead of time in a way that should be compliant with the DMA. What they want instead is to decide whether or not a given feature runs afoul of the DMA after its released in the EU and presumably after they’ve gotten feedback from third parties.

Wojtek Pietrusiewicz:

If a developer emails Apple and asks if an app idea they have will be approved, they will get told to build it, submit it to the App Store, and see. The EU is the App Store here, and Siri AI is the app. I guess Apple don’t like their own policies.

I sympathize, even though Apple is in a better position than the developer, because it has more resources, because it would only potentially be blocked from shipping in one market, and because it can still sell its product in the EU, just with certain features disabled. Building something that might not be accepted is risky, but if you don’t submit anything that you think would be complaint with the rules, you don’t seem very serious. It’s still unclear to me exactly what Apple’s plan is. Its press release says it “will continue working” on bringing the features to the EU, but its SVP of marketing said in an interview that “none of its engineers are currently working on solutions.” Perhaps this implies that it’s banking on a legal or political solution rather than a technical one.

Update (2026-06-25): Jack Wellborn:

While the relationship between the European Commission and Google tells us nothing about playing ball, it tells us exactly how inconsequential support for alternative marketplaces is when it comes to regulatory scrutiny of integrated features. Apple hasn’t played ball with alternative marketplaces and now its new AI-based features are being withheld from the EU lest they get scrutinized for fines by the European Commission. Google hasn’t had to play ball with alternative marketplaces and now its new AI-based features are either being scrutinized for fines by the European Commission or being withheld lest they also get scrutinized. The European Commission is, rightly so in my opinion, regulating both operating systems equally and regardless of their support for alternative marketplaces.

Manton Reece:

It struck me today what a contrast this is with the rest of the AI world, increasingly connected via MCP. Imagine if Gmail was only accessible to AI on Android phones. If Teams was only accessible from a Windows Surface laptop. That is the kind of environment Apple’s policies create, with data locked into silos and monopolies free to leverage their existing strengths into dominance of new technologies too.

No thanks. Just as I should be able to sideload an app onto my own phone, I should be able to choose whether ChatGPT can access my iMessage history. The world is not going to come crashing down by giving users control of their own data.

Update (2026-07-02): Tim Hardwick:

Apple CEO Tim Cook held “constructive” talks with EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen on Tuesday about releasing Siri AI in the bloc while complying with the bloc’s digital rules, reports the Financial Times ($).

[…]

As for Apple’s proposed Trusted System Agent, a Commission official told the publication its contact with Apple on the idea was limited, and that it lacked a concrete proposal or details on how such an agent would work beyond the general concept. The official claimed Apple “focused on obtaining a green light to delay compliance.”

Update (2026-07-03): Nick Heer:

The DMA has been in effect for nearly four years and there is no reason why either party should be having so much difficulty with this proposal stage. Either the Commission is mischaracterizing Apple’s engagement, or Apple’s representatives need to be far better prepared.

It seems like Apple’s strategy is to encourage its customers to pressure the EU into changing the rules.

Previously:

How to Install iOS 27 Public Beta on iPhone

16 July 2026 at 00:05

Now that the public beta for iOS 27 is available, even more iPhone and iPad users are going to be interested in experiencing the new operating systems while they’re under active development. And there’s good reason for this, iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 are both shaping up to be notable improvements to the operating systems, ... Read More

The post How to Install iOS 27 Public Beta on iPhone appeared first on OS X Daily.

iOS 27 Public Beta is Now Available for iPhone

13 July 2026 at 22:37

Apple has launched the public beta program for iOS 27, making the upcoming iPhone operating system available as a beta to all interested users. Beta system software tends to be buggier and less refined than final versions, and is generally best reserved for advanced users, but the public beta is fairly stable, and made available ... Read More

The post iOS 27 Public Beta is Now Available for iPhone appeared first on OS X Daily.

iOS 27 Beta 3 Available to Download

6 July 2026 at 19:58

Apple has released iOS 27 beta 3 for iPhone users who are participating in the beta testing program. iPadOS 27 beta 3 is also available for iPad based beta testers. iOS 27 and iPadOS have an emphasis on performance, with improvements to general system performance, a slider for adjusting Liquid Glass intensity to the appearance, ... Read More

The post iOS 27 Beta 3 Available to Download appeared first on OS X Daily.

White Spot on iPad Screen: What to Do

17 July 2026 at 15:12

A white spot on iPad screen can appear as a bright patch that remains visible while browsing, watching videos or using apps. It may be small and easy to ignore at first, then become distracting whenever the screen shows a white, gray or lightly colored background.

The spot may come from a temporary software problem, but a fixed bright area is more commonly connected to the display hardware. Pressure inside the iPad, a damaged backlight layer, display separation or an impact can create uneven illumination that no setting can remove.

Before arranging a repair, a few simple checks can reveal whether the spot belongs to the image being displayed or to the physical screen itself.

What Causes a White Spot on iPad Screen?

A white spot on iPad screen is often described as a bright spot, pressure mark or backlight patch. On iPads with LCD displays, light passes through several internal layers before reaching the glass. When one of those layers becomes damaged, separated or compressed, light can concentrate in one area.

The mark may be more visible against pale backgrounds and almost disappear when the screen displays black or dark content. This is different from a dead pixel, which usually appears as a tiny fixed dot rather than a larger cloudy patch.

Pressure is one possible cause. Carrying an iPad in an overloaded bag, placing heavy objects on it or using a tight case can place stress on the display. A drop may also disturb the internal screen layers without cracking the front glass.

Battery swelling can create similar pressure from inside the device. If the screen is lifting from the frame, the iPad feels unusually warm or the body appears bent, stop using it and seek service. A swollen battery should not be pressed back into place or handled as an ordinary screen defect.

The problem can also appear after a display replacement involving a poorly fitted or lower-quality part. Apple notes that nongenuine displays may produce inconsistent brightness, color or touch behavior.

White spot on iPad screen - An iPad displays its "Display & Brightness" settings, showing options for Light and Dark modes, brightness adjustment, True Tone, Night Shift scheduling, and other appearance settings—features that can help users address common issues like an iPad screen problem or an uneven iPad backlight. A hand holds the device.
Image Credit:

Check Whether the Spot Is Really on the Display

Begin by opening several different apps. Look at the spot over a white webpage, a gray Settings screen, a dark photo and a full-screen video. A hardware-related mark normally stays in the same physical location regardless of what appears underneath it.

Rotate the iPad. If the content changes orientation but the bright patch remains in the same part of the glass, the display is the likely cause.

Taking a screenshot provides another useful test. A physical screen defect will not normally become part of the screenshot file.

To take a screenshot on an iPad without a Home button:

Top button + either volume button

To take a screenshot on an iPad with a Home button:

Top button + Home button

Open the screenshot on another device or send it to a trusted computer. If the white spot does not appear there, the image generated by iPadOS is normal and the problem is probably inside the display assembly.

If the mark appears in the screenshot, it may belong to an app, image, accessibility setting or software effect rather than the panel.

Restart Before Assuming Hardware Failure

A restart is worth trying because it clears temporary display and system behavior without affecting personal files. It is unlikely to repair physical backlight damage, but it can eliminate a short-lived graphical problem.

To restart an iPad without a Home button:

Press and hold the top button and either volume button > Drag the power slider > Wait approximately 30 seconds > Hold the top button until the Apple logo appears

To restart an iPad with a Home button:

Press and hold the top button > Drag the power slider > Wait approximately 30 seconds > Hold the top button until the Apple logo appears

After restarting, return to the same pale background and check the area again. A spot that remains fixed is unlikely to be caused by a temporary iPadOS issue.

Two tablets displaying a colorful Apple Magazine cover are shown side by side. Blue arrows point to the corners of the tablet on the right, highlighting its narrower bezels compared to the left; it resembles an iPad Screenshot in vibrant detail.
Image Credit: AppleMagazine

Brightness Can Make the Problem More Visible

Lowering brightness may make a bright patch less distracting, but it does not repair the underlying display. The same applies to Dark Mode, Night Shift and Reduce White Point. These settings can change how noticeable the mark becomes without removing it.

To adjust screen brightness:

Settings > Display & Brightness > Brightness

Test the iPad at several brightness levels. A backlight-related spot may become easier to see as brightness increases. Photographing the screen against a plain background at medium and high brightness can also help document the defect before requesting service.

Avoid pressing or rubbing the affected area. Pressure may temporarily change the appearance, but it can damage the display further. Internet advice suggesting that users massage bright spots out of a panel should be ignored.

Check the Case and Screen Protector

Remove any rigid case that appears unusually tight or has been damaged. A poorly fitted case can place uneven pressure around the frame, particularly if the iPad has been dropped while inside it.

A screen protector normally cannot create a true illuminated patch beneath the display. It can, however, produce bubbles, trapped moisture or reflective marks that resemble a screen defect. Examine the iPad with the display turned off. If the mark is visible on the surface even when the screen is black, the protector or glass may be involved.

Do not remove a properly installed protector solely as an experiment unless the mark clearly appears close to its surface. A bright patch visible only while the display is illuminated usually comes from deeper inside the screen.

When the iPad Needs Repair

A persistent white spot generally requires display service when it remains after restarting and does not appear in screenshots. There is no iPadOS setting that can realign a damaged diffuser, remove internal pressure or repair separated display layers.

Back up the iPad before service so photos, documents and app data remain protected.

To create an iCloud backup:

Settings > your name > iCloud > iCloud Backup > Back Up Now

Apple can inspect the device and determine whether the defect qualifies for warranty coverage, AppleCare service or paid repair. Coverage depends on the device, purchase date, condition and whether the problem resulted from accidental damage.

To check coverage:

Settings > General > AppleCare & Warranty

Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider may replace the display assembly or the iPad, depending on the model and available service process. The final repair estimate normally requires inspection.

A white cloud icon centered on a blue gradient background symbolizes iCloud Drive offline, with a small Apple logo and the word "Apple" in the lower right corner.
Image Credit: AppleMagazine

Do Not Ignore Physical Changes

A stable white spot that has not changed for months may remain only a visual annoyance. A spot that is expanding, accompanied by screen lifting or followed by unusual heat needs faster attention.

Stop using the device if the display separates from the enclosure, the iPad becomes visibly swollen or pressure marks spread across the panel. Do not puncture the device, force the display closed or continue charging it unattended.

For an ordinary fixed bright patch, the practical path is simpler: confirm it does not appear in screenshots, restart the iPad, remove any case applying pressure and arrange display service if the mark remains.

A white spot on iPad screen rarely affects the information stored on the device, but it can indicate physical damage that software cannot correct. A brief check can rule out the easy causes. After that, repair is usually more effective than repeatedly changing display settings and hoping the light disappears.

The post White Spot on iPad Screen: What to Do appeared first on AppleMagazine.

Siri AI and Apple’s Trickle-Up Strategy

13 July 2026 at 21:47
The new Siri AI in iOS 27.

The new Siri AI in iOS 27.

In the month that I’ve been using iOS 27 (launching in public beta today) and the new Siri AI, I’ve come to a few conclusions: Siri AI is a much better Siri and will (probably) be a massive success; the newfound chatbot capabilities of Siri will pose a serious threat to OpenAI and the vast majority of free ChatGPT users they have; and the new Siri is (again, probably) not for me at the moment. At the very least, it can’t be right now given its lack of support for third-party apps and technical issues I’ve encountered during beta testing.

It took me a while to accept the fact that Siri AI can’t be the kind of AI assistant I’d spend hours working with every day. But after testing iOS 27’s new Siri experience every day (and breaking it often in the process), I think that’s okay – and, arguably, what Apple is shooting for at the moment.

The new Siri AI is not designed for people who have grown accustomed to working with frontier models and agents such as Claude Code and Codex. The first version of Siri AI can’t be considered an “agent”, nor can it be compared to products from Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google that are targeting power users living at the bleeding edge of AI. If you go into Siri AI thinking that it’s Apple’s answer to ChatGPT Work or Claude Cowork for long-running tasks or deep research queries, you’re going to be disappointed – like I initially was.

Instead, Siri AI carries all the typical traits of a new Apple product: it’s a user-friendly experience designed for the masses, without any of the complexities that define a power-user tool, for better or worse. This is how Apple rolls: they don’t start from a high power-user ceiling and let products trickle down to consumers; they always start from the consumer level and refine, iterate, and extend until products trickle up to power users. This perspective isn’t meant to excuse the (many) current flaws of Siri AI. (More on them below.) It’s just the necessary lens for understanding how Apple is addressing their AI shortcomings in a way that doesn’t betray the company’s soul and design ethos.

There will be plenty more to say about iOS 27, the improved Shortcuts app, Liquid Glass tweaks, and other system enhancements later this year. After all, I have a review to write. Today’s column is merely an opportunity for me to reason through the obstacles I’ve faced with Siri AI and the way I’ve had to re-learn how to think about Siri.

Siri AI: The Good Stuff

You see, I believe my issue is that I’m too agent-pilled and accustomed to products like Claude Code and Codex at the moment. Desktop agents have fundamentally changed what I do as a creator who writes and talks on podcasts but also releases software products for my team and audience. There is no denying that Apple’s new Foundation models powering Siri are a far cry from Fable and Sol, or that they feel like models from two years ago. The AI frontier from the two big labs (and – we have to be honest with the numbers here – probably SpaceXAI and Meta now, too) is in a completely different league at the moment. I spent my first couple of weeks with Siri AI trying to convince myself that I could replace Codex with Siri AI, and that was the wrong approach. There is a potential future in which Siri AI can become a more proactive and capable agent, but that’s not what Apple is shipping this year.

If you, like me, are a heavy Claude or ChatGPT user but are curious about Siri AI, you need to reset your expectations and understand that Apple is going after something else entirely. For starters, the new Siri AI is a dramatically better Siri for typical Siri stuff. The new Siri understands your commands and nuanced requests better because of the LLMs behind it; it can often perform multiple requests in one go (such as setting multiple timers with one command); the new expressive (and customizable!) voices sound great, and they’re terrific at reading and summarizing notifications. Apple’s first advantage compared to other chatbots is right here: only Siri can integrate with the iPhone and iPad to this extent, so even if the Foundation models aren’t as smart as the competition, Siri can do a lot more for most people on their devices because neither OpenAI nor Anthropic have OSes they can control. Claude and ChatGPT are extremely intelligent inside their own apps; Siri AI is intelligent enough for routine tasks that can span an entire operating system.

The new expressive voices (right) sound great.

The new expressive voices (right) sound great.

The other key advantage of Siri AI is its system-wide persistence. In addition to voice mode, there’s now a full-blown Siri app that behaves like a traditional chatbot app, allowing you to revisit threads and pin specific ones at the top; but most importantly, you can now finally invoke the new hybrid Spotlight/Siri AI search UI from anywhere on iOS by swiping down on the Dynamic Island.

Spotlight and Siri have been unified in the same UI, so you can still quickly launch apps and documents via search in addition to asking questions.

Spotlight and Siri have been unified in the same UI, so you can still quickly launch apps and documents via search in addition to asking questions.

The lack of system-wide access to Spotlight on iOS bothered me for years, ever since I started reviewing iOS on an annual basis. Now, search is only a swipe away no matter the app I’m using, and the search box itself is smart enough to understand whether I’m looking for an app to launch or formulating a longer request for Siri AI.


It’s been challenging for me to “undo” advanced habits I’ve developed with agents like OpenClaw and assistants like Codex; I think MacStories readers who fall on the power-user end of the AI spectrum will probably face the same hurdles with Siri AI. However, I’ve been able to identify a variety of areas where Siri AI was faster, nicer, and more comfortable than ChatGPT or Codex Remote for practical, everyday questions.

I recently spent a few days in Gaeta, and as we were walking to dinner one night, we spotted this huge vessel docked in front of the restaurant. Typically, I would have taken a picture, started a new ChatGPT thread, uploaded the image, and asked a question about it. This time, I simply held down the Camera Control button (which now defaults to Siri AI mode in the Camera app) and captured a photo. A few seconds later, Siri AI told me I was looking at the Palinuro, a three-masted barquentine that serves as a training vessel for the Italian Navy – which was spot-on. An interaction that would have taken 20-30 seconds with ChatGPT was reduced to a five-second affair with Siri AI. Even nicer, I was able to ask follow-up questions from Siri AI’s floating overlay as well as find the chat in the Siri app later, where I continued asking questions about the ship’s history and usual locations.

The ability to go from Siri in the Camera to a longer conversation in the dedicated Siri app is one of my favorite aspects of Siri AI.

The ability to go from Siri in the Camera to a longer conversation in the dedicated Siri app is one of my favorite aspects of Siri AI.

Improved on-screen awareness and integration with Apple Maps has been another highlight. On our way to Gaeta, Google Maps had us drive through narrow mountain roads that we really didn’t like, even though they arguably saved us some time. For the return trip, I decided to use Apple Maps, but I noticed that it also recommended the same mountain roads. So without leaving the Maps app, I swiped down to invoke Siri and typed:

I wanna go back home (from Gaeta to Rome) but I don’t like this route. It goes through too many mountains. I wanna do the Autostrada as much as possible. Is there any way to maybe add some time to the trip and go slightly further down south to find another Autostrada entrance?

To which Siri responded:

To avoid the mountainous routes and stay on the Autostrada A1 longer, you can head slightly south from Gaeta toward the Cassino entrance or even further south toward Capua before heading north to Rome. This will add some time to your trip but provides a flatter, more straightforward drive on the highway.

Again, spot-on: the Cassino toll booth proved to be the way to go for a more comfortable trip.

These Maps-related suggestions were perfect.

These Maps-related suggestions were perfect.

A couple more things worth noting here:

  • Siri AI didn’t mind my mix of Italian and English in the same request. Even though it’s only officially launching with English support, Siri AI is backed by a large language model – and LLMs are inherently good at multiple languages.
  • Siri AI assembled a multi-step route for me, which I opened in Maps, and it was perfect.

After some hiccups in the first two developer betas of iOS 27, Siri AI has also become an efficient way to work with the Reminders app, which I started using as my primary task manager several months ago when I began working on my RemCTL CLI for it. In addition to the usual stuff that Siri could already do in Reminders before, such as creating tasks and fetching items due on the current day, Siri AI – thanks to the new and improved App Intents Apple added to Reminders – can now handle more advanced questions. For instance, I can ask Siri to get tasks belonging to two specific sections of a list in Reminders, and it’ll do it. Claude can also integrate with Reminders on iOS, but since its integration is powered by the old and limited EventKit framework, it can’t be as flexible as the exclusive App Intents integration now available for all apps in Siri AI.

Siri AI can finally show me tasks from sections of lists…too bad it also included a task from another section.

Siri AI can finally show me tasks from sections of lists…too bad it also included a task from another section.

I’ll have plenty more examples to share and analyze in my review of iOS and iPadOS 27 later this year. As things stand right now, my thoughts on Siri AI are converging around this idea: with system-wide access, an exclusive app ecosystem, and good enough performance, Siri AI doesn’t need to be a frontier-level model to be useful to millions of people.

Siri AI: The Bad Stuff

All of this, however, is not to say that Siri AI is perfect. Far from it.

This is beta software, of course, and Apple has time to improve the experience. But I’m afraid that some design choices and intrinsic limitations of Siri AI will remain in place for the next year, leaving us with a product that, despite a two-year delay, still feels very early compared to the likes of ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, even in their plain “chatbot” modes.

The biggest issue I’ve encountered is the inconsistency of it all. Very often, the new Siri AI still replies with a generic “Uh oh, something went wrong” error that doesn’t explain what the error was or why it happened. Sometimes, I ask a question via voice, and it errors out, but then a few seconds later, I type the same question in the app, and it’s fine.

Anecdotally speaking, these issues seem to occur more frequently when Siri “thinks” longer for a request, which perhaps suggests Apple needs to optimize the performance of their larger model on Private Cloud Compute. However, the fact that Apple wants to keep things simple compared to their competition isn’t doing them any favors here: in ChatGPT or Gemini, I can know when the model is reasoning for longer, but Siri AI’s interface is a black box. There are no reasoning selectors or hints in the UI at all. That is a fine, Apple-y approach when everything works well; but as soon as something breaks (as often happens with chatbots), the lack of clarity and controls stings.

The entire Siri app is, in fact, a bit of a mess. Its performance is subpar: I’ve noticed frequent stutters when scrolling threads, delays when typing (letters wouldn’t appear on-screen and autocorrect wouldn’t work), and broken ‘Sources’ popups displaying no actual sources for a query.

The results of this query were stale (I was on a trip last week), and the Sources panel for linked emails came up empty.

The results of this query were stale (I was on a trip last week), and the Sources panel for linked emails came up empty.

The app lets you rename and pin threads, which is nice, but it doesn’t offer basic controls such as the ability to select text in a Siri response or create folders for chats. Although the grid view looks good in marketing screenshots, in practice, I had to disable it immediately because I couldn’t quickly parse my threads and find what I was looking for.

I really don't like Siri's grid layout.

I really don’t like Siri’s grid layout.

Which brings me to indexing. As I noted above, Apple’s advantage compared to other chatbots will be Siri’s access to an on-device index that draws from the user’s apps and personal context. The problem is that I’ve yet to see an example of personal context “enhancing” any of Siri’s answers, and performing actions in or retrieving data from apps has been half broken for me since the very first beta of iOS 27.

I can’t speak about personal context because it has literally never worked in my examples. For apps, my understanding is that third-party ones will need to be specifically updated for iOS 27 in order to work with Siri AI – although some of them seem to work already, but others don’t? Apple requires developers to implement new features of the App Intents framework for Siri AI, and I’m optimistic that those who do will have their apps appear in Siri AI by September. Greg Pierce, the developer of Drafts, has added early support for Siri AI in his app, and I’ve been able to successfully create a note within the app from Siri, which presented a custom UI snippet for Drafts and completed the request in seconds. That was neat.

My problem is that, right now with Apple’s own apps, both the index and Siri’s ability to perform actions are very inconsistent. The assistant hallucinates abilities it doesn’t have, and it frequently just doesn’t work. In the examples below, I wanted to get notes from a specific folder, songs from a playlist, and a link from a note. Siri AI responded with an empty list of notes, said it couldn’t get songs from a playlist, and told me that my note didn’t have any links, respectively. (It did.)

Reminders integration started working for me in iOS 27 beta 3, but it still isn’t perfect. When I ask for tasks due today, Siri AI insists on presenting the same tasks twice, my only fault being that I enabled the integration between Reminders and Calendar:

At one point, I asked Siri to show me my overdue reminders. Siri AI struggled with that: it cut the list of overdue items short, apologized when I pushed back, then did it again anyways. I know that Siri AI is not based on a Gemini model but is rather a Gemini distillation, but I think that if you’ve ever used a Gemini model before, this kind of behavior with tool-calling should be awfully familiar.

Siri AI isn’t a replacement for agentic workflows with other LLMs that can perform multiple actions in one chain of events. Here, for instance, I asked Siri to get my latest screenshot from the Photos app and frame it with my Apple Frames shortcut. Not only did Siri AI not get the most recent screenshot from my library, but the assistant couldn’t perform two actions sequentially. At least, however, it told me; when I repeated a similar question but asked to copy the screenshot to the clipboard instead, Siri first asked me to confirm my action and then changed its mind and said it couldn’t do it.

Why ask for clipboard confirmation if you can't do it?

Why ask for clipboard confirmation if you can’t do it?

Searching for content hasn’t been ideal on my end, either. When I asked Siri to find me the latest single by Phoebe Bridgers, its default text response was an EP from two years ago; when I asked via voice, the response was correct. (…Why?) I similarly haven’t been impressed with Siri’s ability to search for messages and emails. Siri AI can reliably find recent texts from the Messages app, but the moment I start going a little further back in time, the system seems to struggle. I wanted to know when we took some time off at MacStories last summer, which I know was mentioned in a MacStories Weekly email that I have in the Mail app. Siri AI could only find a generic mention of John recharging after some time off, but it couldn’t give me an exact date because it did not find the correct email. ChatGPT Work did it in one minute and gave me a full breakdown of the weeks we took off.

Left: ChatGPT Work. Right: Siri AI.

Left: ChatGPT Work. Right: Siri AI.

All of this begs the question:

Is Apple’s on-device index a solid technological foundation or not? Is this system actually going to work at scale, for users with dozens of apps installed, each donating their data to the index, perhaps spanning multiple years of content? And can the cloud models – which are not using MCP but appear to be based on a plain JSON schema for structured data – make sense of it all?

My early tests haven’t been encouraging, but we have until September to find out.

The Trickle-Up

A trickle-up strategy cuts both ways: it gives Apple an opportunity to start simple and refine over time, but it also means that you, the user, are never given any more control than what the product allows for. As a result, Siri AI can be magical when it works; when it doesn’t, it feels like a mystery.

I can’t say whether I’m optimistic that Apple will get all of this to work in time for the fall or not because they don’t have the greatest track record in AI. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt since the product itself is genuinely interesting and different from any other chatbot on the market. I want Siri AI to work, and if Apple can deliver on their vision, I’m convinced that it’ll spell trouble for OpenAI and ChatGPT. (Let’s face it: it’s the product to beat here, both in and outside of court.)

Siri AI permeates iOS 27, and that’s a threat to OpenAI and the hundreds of millions of users they have using ChatGPT for free with GPT-5.5 Instant. I don’t think Apple Foundation Models are as good as GPT-5.5 Instant, but Siri AI is the more ergonomic and integrated product. When the underlying chatbot and its world knowledge capabilities are good enough, and they can also be invoked via voice, text, the Camera app, context menus, or keyboard shortcuts, why would I open a siloed chatbot when I can use Siri AI and get a comparable answer more comfortably? If you’re a casual user of ChatGPT and do not pay for it, I think Siri AI can be a very compelling product that provides similar answers and, unlike OpenAI’s chatbot, integrates with the iPhone apps you already use. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that OpenAI is now following in Anthropic’s footsteps to monetize the business and enterprise markets rather than the consumer one.

At the same time, my concern is that we may be collectively assuming that “normal people” won’t see the differences between the capabilities of ChatGPT and Siri AI. In this industry, we have a tendency to sell “normal people” short and paint them as some perplexed bunch of occasional smartphone users who somehow passively accept any technology that is thrown at them. I strongly disagree with that. Maybe those people don’t care about ChatGPT Work, Codex, or Fable (yet?), but they can tell when an AI assistant is useful and when it’s not. People will compare the utility of ChatGPT to Siri AI, and I’m concerned that Apple’s 1.0 product will feel like it’s too little, too late – especially since Siri AI will be launching in select regions and in English only.

In the AI scene, companies move fast and break things. Apple needs to move fast without breaking anything, anymore. That’s a tough challenge, but here we are.

Headless Macs and Hamstrung iPads

30 June 2026 at 15:50
My Codex setup.

My Codex setup.

In the current era of coding agents becoming productivity assistants, iPadOS’ limitations are no longer defined by the lack of desktop-class multitasking or access to external peripherals. A new class of iPadOS shortcomings looms large on the horizon: the iPad’s app sandboxing and the absence of an open filesystem have relegated it to acting as a remote control for agents.

I’ve been ruminating on this thought for some time. I, of course, am very satisfied with the improvements Apple brought to the iPadOS platform throughout the 26 cycle: between new windowing, local capture, a menu bar, and the improved Files app, I can get most of my old-school work done on the iPad Pro without begrudging the experience like I used to a few years ago. What I’ve noticed this year, however, is that iPadOS 26 was an update designed to address the pre-existing low-hanging fruit of quasi-desktop efficiency; by design – and we have Craig Federighi on the record saying as much – it wasn’t intended to reinvent the wheel in any meaningful way.

That would have been fine a few years ago. The problem is that the productivity wheel is literally being reinvented by other companies as we speak. And in an unsurprising turn of events, the Mac is at the forefront of that reinvention, while the iPad is being left behind once again.

I’m writing this as someone who likes to be on the bleeding edge of AI tools. Since the release of Claude Code in early 2025, I (and, realistically, millions of other nerds whose taste aligns with mine) have increasingly moved a lot of my research, automation, coding, and other tasks considered “productivity” to desktop agents. These are powered by the same underlying technology as chatbots, but they’re considerably more powerful: Claude Code and Cowork, Codex, Perplexity’s Personal Computer, and self-hosted agents like OpenClaw and Hermes can understand intent and perform long-running tasks on your computer. They can write code, stay on a task for hours (or even days) at a time, analyze the contents of your screen, and even use a computer on their own. To believe that these AI tools are still a fad and chatbots are useless is misinformation at this point.

As of June 2026, I spend most of my days with two apps constantly open on my M4 Pro MacBook Pro: Codex and Notion. I’m a huge fan of what OpenAI has accomplished with Codex for Mac; their all-in-one package that combines thread-based chats with skills, plugins, connectors, computer use, memories, and system-wide filesystem access has genuinely allowed me to produce content for my audience that I wouldn’t have even dreamed of years ago. Since I started working with Codex, I’ve released a major update to Apple Frames, two CLIs (with two more coming soon), Shortcuts Playground, and a brand new MacStories Shortcuts Archive. These are actual products that are used by thousands of people and are generating real revenue for MacStories. I’ve also created an entire suite of MacStories-only internal apps (now used by our whole team) and am currently in the process of researching my iOS 27 review, creating an app for Shortcuts Playground, and brainstorming a different product altogether for MCP.

I’m doing all of this on a Mac because the true Codex experience isn’t even “desktop-only”: it’s Mac-only.

Let me give you some examples. To make the original version of Shortcuts Playground, I had Codex with Computer Use scrape my entire library on the old MacStories Shortcuts Archive, download over 300 shortcuts, and learn my coding style. Once I had a plugin, I also had Codex create over 1,000 shortcuts on its own, install them in the Shortcuts app for Mac, and debug them visually to find issues. For the new Shortcuts Playground plugin and app, I’m going even further: Codex created over 3,500 shortcuts spanning the entire library of Shortcuts actions while simultaneously coordinating with other Codex threads – some of which are running on my Mac Studio – to build an app, train a local model for Core AI, and constantly iterate on the new harness behind the app. Meanwhile, I’m also spending time in Codex organizing sources for my iOS 27 review, managing my tasks with Reminders and my own RemCTL, and performing general research on any topic I think of. The net result of all this is that I’m shipping more things, making more money for MacStories, saving money thanks to our new internal tools, and – most importantly – learning a lot and having fun.

Working with Codex for Mac.

Working with Codex for Mac.

Some of the CLIs I’ve built. Two of them are coming soon.

Some of the CLIs I’ve built. Two of them are coming soon.

In all of this, the iPad’s role is to be, once again, an accessory to the Mac – and a rather expensive one at that. I wrote last year about iPadOS’ third-party app problem, and I still think all of it applies today. What’s different in 2026 is that these powerful agentic tools that are redefining coding and knowledge work, and which are centralizing productivity inside so-called “super apps”, aren’t coming to the iPad, but not for political or financial reasons: they’re Mac-only because only macOS is mature and open enough to support them.

In a funny twist of fate, Apple spent years trying to make iPadOS catch up to macOS on the surface, only for macOS’ underlying nature to unlock a new generation of apps that are rewriting the rules of modern software. No amount of windowing and menu bars can change the fact that neither Claude Cowork nor Codex will ever be possible on the current version of iPadOS. From an open filesystem that lets agents poke around anywhere to powerful Accessibility and Screen Recording APIs for developers to features like system-wide hotkeys, dictation, and true background processes, Apple’s oldest operating system is the one that feels the freshest (and the most powerful) in the AI industry today.

In fact, the Mac is so powerful and well-equipped for this new wave of desktop agents, it even yields an amazing experience when used in a “headless” setup with no display attached to it. This may have started as a trend because of OpenClaw, but six months later, I believe that a Mac mini with Codex running on it is the best bang for your buck if you’re building an always-on agentic setup based on a frontier model that can do just about anything you throw at it.

Which brings me to the iPad’s only silver lining in this space right now.

Most of my Codex tasks are running on my Mac Studio server, but I also use Codex on my MacBook Pro. Thanks to Codex’s support for remote connections, I can chat with threads running on the Mac Studio from the Codex app on a different machine, which is a fantastic feature. Alternatively, I can use Apple’s excellent (and, again, Mac-only) Screen Sharing app to log into my headless Mac and interact with macOS with superior performance and image quality to VNC. (I also use this HDMI 2.1 dummy plug to unlock 4K resolution when headless.) Coordinating Codex threads across different projects and machines feels like the sort of thing that shouldn’t be possible, yet here we are.

If the iPad is still relevant to me in this specific new way of working, it’s entirely because of the ChatGPT app and the fact that OpenAI cared enough to design a good remote experience for iPhone and iPad users. The Codex section inside ChatGPT is a solid product and getting better every week; it’s also the only app of this kind that lets you connect to multiple computers at once and manage threads across all of them. With Codex remote on iPad, I can continue my projects from the MacBook Pro or Mac Studio, pin specific threads, and keep an eye on all my agents working in the background. In general, it’s also a way to bridge functionalities that are missing from iPadOS. Without Codex remote, I wouldn’t be able to ask my agent to reschedule my reminders and turn some emails into tasks in the same workflow; I wouldn’t be able to tell my agent to go to the Apple Newsroom, find me a specific press release, extract all images from it, and upload them to our CDN.

Codex remote on iPad.

Codex remote on iPad.

Perhaps Siri AI will unlock similar capabilities (although I doubt to the degree of a frontier desktop agent), but it’ll still be limited to apps made by companies that decide to support App Intents. When I’m not using my Mac and I think of something I can’t do on the iPad these days, I instantly reach for Codex inside ChatGPT. I suspect this trend will only grow as more AI companies release similar remote experiences for iOS and iPadOS.

Here’s the issue, though: these are remote companion experiences. It’s great that they exist and that OpenAI cared enough to make them great, but they’re still no substitutes for the real Codex experience on a Mac. It’s ironic if you think about it, isn’t it? A headless Mac is still more flexible and powerful than an iPad hamstrung by the closed nature of its own OS and software gatekeeping.

My headless Mac Studio in Mirage for iPad.

My headless Mac Studio in Mirage for iPad.

Mirage for iPad’s app launcher.

Mirage for iPad’s app launcher.

If you’re among the five million people using Codex on a weekly basis and will be planning your next laptop purchase in a few months, perhaps these considerations will change the calculus for you. Especially in the face of price increases and RAM uncertainty, would you be better served by spending $1,499 on a hybrid laptop that gets work done the old way with 256 GB of storage, or $1,499 on a computer where AI is a first-class citizen with 24 GB of RAM and double the storage? If we accept that power users’ priorities and workflows will be dramatically changing in the near future (if they haven’t already!), all prices being equal, which OS is best positioned for the future?

Of course, I like using both an iPad Pro and a Mac for different tasks. But let’s face it; in this day and age – and especially after last week – not everybody has the budget for two computers that have some overlap between them. Sure, I could argue that an iPad Pro + a headless Mac mini is an insane combo to get the best of both worlds these days: the nimble and delightful nature of iPadOS and the freedom to experiment with AI on a Mac. You can install apps like the latest Jump Desktop beta or the great new screen sharing app Mirage on the iPad and use your Mac mini almost as if it were connected to the iPad’s display. Set up Tailscale on your network, and the Mac’s power can be with you at all times. But that’s a lot of money, and a lot of setup, to achieve an approximation of what a single MacBook Air can handle with more memory, more storage, and a couple of Mac apps.

I’m sure that Apple is aware of the changing nature of this landscape, but in a similar vein to chatbots and Siri, perhaps they were unprepared for the tide of agents to accelerate so quickly. If the idea of putting macOS on an iPad Pro continues to be a non-starter at Apple, and assuming agent-based coding and knowledge work are here to stay, what should the company do to make sure the iPad doesn’t get left behind again? Is a sandboxed Terminal for iPad backed by a dedicated “Agent Framework” the solution? Is working with other companies to build more “remote companion” apps the way forward?

Or, perhaps more obviously: how long until Siri AI can also become a capable agent, connected to App Intents, on par with competing frontier agents?

Until, and if, that happens, the iPad will once again play the role of sidekick to macOS.

When it comes to the bleeding edge of AI and pushing the frontier of agents forward, there’s nothing like the Mac.

❌