Amazon has launched early pre-order discounts across the newly announced Apple lineup, including AirPods 5 with ANC dropping to $125 and AirPods Pro 3 at $199. Multiple Apple Watch Series 12 configurations and the black Apple Watch Ultra 4 with a Translucent band are also seeing modest price cuts ahead of this week's deliveries. Separately, B&H is offering between $320 and $450 off select M5 and M5 Pro MacBook Pro configurations, while Amazon has $150 off the M5 MacBook Air and various Anker charging accessories on sale.
Ars Technica's review of macOS 27 Golden Gate reports that Apple has removed the option to disable Apple Intelligence, eliminating the toggle that once let users skip downloading its AI models. The release also ends support for Intel-based Macs entirely, running only on Apple Silicon, while bringing design fixes and performance polish to areas criticized in macOS 26 Tahoe.
9to5Mac's daily podcast episode for September 16, 2026 rounds up the day's top Apple stories, including discussion of features expected in the next macOS release, internally referred to as 'Golden Gate.' The episode is distributed via major podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Google Play.
iOS 27 includes a new privacy feature called Impersonation Risk Detection, designed to flag social engineering scams where attackers pose as banks or trusted contacts to pressure victims into transferring money or changing account details. The feature is disabled by default and must be turned on manually through Settings > Privacy & Security > Impersonation Risk Detection. It works by analyzing device and Apple Account signals to generate a risk score that participating apps can use to add warnings, delays, or identity checks.
According to The Information, Apple is developing enterprise-grade AI servers built around its future M8 Ultra chip, intended for sale to AI developers, businesses and governments rather than just internal use. Two configurations are reportedly planned, one linking two M8 Ultra chips and another linking four, with Apple weighing Nvidia's NVLink Fusion networking tools to connect them. The project has been underway for about a year with CEO John Ternus reportedly supportive, though nothing is finalized and launch isn't expected before 2029.
The Information reports Apple is developing a new line of enterprise servers, its first since discontinuing Xserve in 2011, aiming to capitalize on surging demand for AI compute power. The machines are expected to use two or four M8 Ultra chips, a processor generation still years from release, putting a launch around 2029. Reports also suggest Apple may adopt Nvidia's NVLink Fusion interconnect technology to link multiple chips together.
Apple has introduced an opt-in feature called Apple Reference Image on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max that signs pixel data straight off the camera sensor before any software processing occurs, creating what Apple calls a 'secure digital negative.' To turn this file into a usable photo, the device sends it to Apple's Private Cloud Compute, which verifies sensor and Secure Enclave signatures and device identity before producing a JPEG with a composite RSA-3072 and post-quantum ML-DSA-87 signature.
Apple is reportedly shifting its iPhone camera strategy toward giving users more manual control over how photos are processed, rather than relying solely on automatic computational adjustments. The change is expected to arrive with the iPhone 18 Pro, allowing photographers greater flexibility in shaping the final look of their images.
Apple unveiled a Health Age feature for the Apple Watch, joining Whoop, Oura, Garmin, Withings and other companies in offering a metric that claims to estimate a user's physiological age based on fitness and health data. The Verge's Victoria Song tested several of these tools on herself and found wildly inconsistent results, with different devices estimating her age anywhere from 26 to 42 despite her actual age being 38.
After hands-on testing of the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, a ZDNET reviewer found the two models are nearly feature-identical this generation, aside from screen and battery size differences. Both share the same triple-camera system with variable aperture technology and matching durability, prompting a shift in buying advice toward the smaller Pro model.
Apple has released the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, which reviewers say deliver notable gains in battery life, processing performance, and camera quality over the prior generation. These improvements reportedly put the devices ahead of competing premium Android flagships in overall capability.
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max bring a redesigned back where the glass camera cutout now matches the aluminum color, addressing criticism of last year's contrasting two-tone look. The phones also gain a variable aperture camera, faster performance, longer battery life, and added weight, and come in burgundy, glacier, silver, and black.
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