GoKawiil
Tech News
Apple is expanding its $50 million Supplier Employee Development Fund by launching a new Apple Education Center in Vietnam, run in partnership with Hanoi University of Science and Technology. The center will offer technical training in smart manufacturing, robotics and automation, plus leadership and soft-skills courses, mirroring a similar program Apple rolled out in India earlier this year.
Apple has confirmed a product event for September 9 at the Steve Jobs Theater, with invitations carrying the tagline 'Surprise and shine.' The showcase is expected to include updated iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max models, and possibly Apple's first foldable iPhone, reportedly using a book-style design similar to Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8.
A worldwide shortage of memory chips, driven largely by demand for AI infrastructure, is squeezing hardware manufacturers just as major companies prepare new product launches. Apple has already unveiled Mac minis and Mac Studios with new M6 chips, with an iPhone event expected in September featuring the iPhone 18 Pro, Pro Max, a foldable iPhone, and new Apple Watches. Makers are responding to rising component costs by either raising prices on devices or reducing memory and storage specifications to keep costs down.
Apple has begun silently pushing App Store updates to fix Apple Watch apps that failed to launch under the watchOS 27 beta. The updates carry a note stating Apple itself repackaged the app for compatibility, with no new features added. Apple told developers this automated fix rollout will wrap up by August 31, ahead of watchOS 27's public release expected in mid-September.
IDC's August 2026 forecast predicts worldwide smartphone shipments will drop 16.7% this year, a steeper decline than the 13.9% estimate from May. The cause is a severe shortage of NAND and DRAM chips, with component costs up over 300% year-over-year as manufacturers redirect capacity to AI data centers. As a result, average smartphone selling prices have jumped 27.6% to $581, effectively pushing sub-$100 Android phones out of the market.
Apple has released a support document outlining how the revamped Spotlight indexing system will work in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, powering both search and the upgraded Siri. The company notes that indexing—done locally on each device—can take hours or days for large data sets, but completes faster if the device is idle, plugged into power, and connected to Wi-Fi or Ethernet.
A tech roundup recommends external displays for buyers of Apple's newly released Mac mini and Mac Studio, highlighting Apple's own Studio Display and the newer Studio Display XDR as standout choices. The Studio Display offers a 27-inch 5K panel, a 12MP Center Stage webcam, True Tone technology, and Thunderbolt 5 ports, while the XDR variant adds mini-LED technology and a 120Hz refresh rate.
Apple has started displaying advertisements in its Maps app in the US and Canada, marked only with a small 'ad' label next to some search results. The rollout is inconsistent—not every search or city shows ads yet—and there are no sponsored pins as seen in Google Maps, but unlike other apps, Apple has not provided any toggle to turn the ads off.
The Asahi Linux project has released version 7.2 of its Progress Linux distribution, continuing its effort to bring full Linux support to Apple Silicon Macs. This update focuses heavily on improving power management, particularly around how the application CPU cores enter and exit sleep states using ARM's Wait For Interrupt instruction and Apple's deep-sleep variant. The team is also working to align its downstream power management driver with the standardized Power State Coordination Interface required for upstream kernel acceptance.
Ahead of Apple's expected September 9 unveiling of its first foldable iPhone, research firm IDC forecasts the device will ship more than 10 million units within its debut year despite a rumored price around $2,500. The estimate aligns with a separate Counterpoint Research forecast projecting Apple will capture 25% of foldable smartphone shipments in 2026, as Samsung's share slips from 40% to 32%.
Apple's Mac mini lineup includes both the newer M6 chip and the older M5 Pro, but the M5 Pro model is priced higher because it targets a different performance tier. The M5 Pro offers more CPU and GPU cores, higher RAM ceilings up to 64GB, and storage options up to 8TB, compared to the M6's maximum 12-core CPU, 32GB RAM, and 2TB storage.
Counterpoint Research says Apple placed five models in the world's top 10 best-selling smartphones for Q2 2026, with the base iPhone 17 taking the top spot at 6% of global unit sales. The iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17e, and iPhone 16 also made the list, while Samsung was the only other brand represented with five models including the Galaxy S26 Ultra.