GoKawiil
Tech News
Apple released a paper explaining how Audio Intelligence works on the new Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4, covering Sound Recognition, Music Recognition with Shazam, Live Rewind, and Siri Recap. The company emphasized that all four features are opt-in, with Live Rewind and Siri Recap arriving in beta later this year with English support.
Alongside unveiling the iPhone 18 and its first foldable, the iPhone Duo, Apple raised prices on its older iPhone lineup by roughly $100 in the US, with steeper increases abroad, including about 20.5% in India. The company also discontinued the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models.
Apple unveiled its first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, alongside new iPhones and Apple Watches. The device supports the USB-C Apple Pencil on both its cover screen and inner display, though Apple notes this functionality arrives 'later this year' rather than at launch. Pricing starts at $2,000 for 256GB storage, with pre-orders beginning October 16 and availability October 23.
At its annual hardware event, Apple unveiled three new iPhones—including a foldable model—alongside updated Apple Watches and AirPods. The company positioned these devices less as standalone gadgets and more as platforms designed to deliver personal AI experiences.
US federal agencies issued a joint advisory on Sept. 8 alleging that Chinese AI companies including Alibaba, DeepSeek, MiniMax, Moonshot AI, StepFun and Z.AI have run large-scale operations to pull outputs from US models like Claude, GPT, Gemini and Grok since late 2024. The advisory says these firms extracted billions of tokens through millions of queries, using techniques such as chain-of-thought extraction and automated evasion to dodge blocking measures, in order to train their own competing systems.
Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo, its first foldable smartphone, priced starting at $1,999. The device opens into a 7.6-inch Super Retina XDR display and closes to a 5.4-inch outer screen with an asymmetric, passport-like shape rather than the square form used by some rivals. Apple emphasized a new multi-layer glass and titanium hinge design meant to minimize the visible crease common in earlier foldables.
Researchers at Delft University of Technology, led by Gabriel Budel, analyzed scientific literature and found The Beatles are the most frequently referenced band in paper titles and text, with over 3,000 allusions to their songs. Examples include a Long COVID paper titled 'The Lung and Winding Road' and a quantum computing study called 'Here Comes the SU(N)'. The work builds on earlier research tracking Bob Dylan and Clash lyric references in biomedical journals.
Apple has revised its trade-in payout tables just a month after last raising them, lowering the maximum credit offered for every returning iPhone model by as much as $120. At the same time, trade-in values rose across the entire iPad lineup and for nearly all Mac models except the Mac Pro, while Apple Watch and Android device values were mostly reduced or held steady. The updated figures, effective September 9, 2026, also add trade-in support for the new iPhone 17 line and iPhone Air.
Apple is bundling a free three-month trial of Apple One with purchases of the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and iPhone Duo. Apple One combines Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Arcade, iCloud storage, Apple Fitness+, and Apple News+ into one subscription package, offered in Individual, Family, and Premier tiers. The promotion begins September 17 and reportedly extends to other eligible iPhone, iPad, and Mac purchases, though full details remain unclear.
Apple confirmed iPhone Handoff, a feature in iOS 27 that lets a single phone number stay active on two iPhones simultaneously, unveiled at its Surprise and Shine event alongside the iPhone 18 Pro, Pro Max, and foldable iPhone Duo. Setup happens through the Cellular settings by holding two iPhones together and choosing which device holds the main eSIM versus the companion eSIM.
Apple did not announce it, but after its iPhone Duo event the company raised prices by $100 across its lineup of previous-generation iPhones still for sale. The iPhone 16 returns to its original $799 launch price, the iPhone 17E now starts at $699, and the iPhone Air jumps to $1,099. AirPods pricing, including the AirPods Pro 3 at $249, was left unchanged.
Apple unveiled its first foldable phone, called the Duo, revealing that its hinge mechanism was engineered using AI algorithms to match each hinge to its housing for precise alignment. The company also used confocal laser scanning and 3D-printed micro layers of photopolymer to smooth out surface irregularities, according to chief hardware officer Johny Srouji.