Benjamin and Chance get excited for the upcoming Siri roadmap, with Bloomberg reporting that the delayed features will arrive with 26.4 and a full chatbot experience is due before the end of the year. The Information says Apple is developing an AI pin, the iPhone 18 Pro cutout positioning situation is seemingly clarified, and Apple makes App Store ads even less noticeable. 

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Apple this week shared a trailer for a new Immersive Video release coming to Apple Vision Pro later this month: Top Dogs. The company describes it as a behind-the-scenes look at the “biggest dog show on Earth.”

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

Sponsored by Stuff: Stuff helps you get everything out of your head and into a simple, elegant system—closing open loops and reducing mental stress. Use code 9TO5 at checkout for 50% off your first year.

Today’s 9to5Toys Lunch Break is ready to roll down below. Alongside the ongoing price drops on M4 Mac mini at up to $110 off, we are starting off with some solid deals on the M3 MacBook Air for folks looking to save a ton – you’ll find a couple configurations at as much as $500 less than the comparable M4 variants right now. We also have a host of official Apple Watch Ultra and Series bands at up to 30% off starting from $31, this Milanese model at a new all-time low, and some details on the Best Buy Prep for Playoffs Super Bowl sale. Head below for a closer look. 

A report yesterday said that we will see a Siri chatbot as part of iOS 27, despite the company previously dismissing this idea.

If accurate, this will see the company adopt a two-stage strategy to finally giving the new Siri the smarts it has long lacked …

The feature combines the user’s listening history with real-time world data to create smart playlists based on natural-language prompts. Here are the details.

Apple TV is back in the above-the-line Oscars awards conversation with an unexpected Best Picture nomination for F1: The Movie, the Academy announced this morning.

The blockbuster F1 also got nominated for Best Sound, Film Editing, and Visual Effects. Documentary Come See Me in the Good Light was nominated for best feature length documentary, and The Lost Bus also got recognized for Visual Effects.

Yesterday brought a surprising report about the development of an Apple pin, which The Information likened to the mysterious and as-yet-unreleased AI hardware device designed by Jony Ive.

I have a pretty strong suspicion about what the Apple pin is, and I’m very confident indeed that I know what it isn’t …

If you are having your iPhone alarms go off without making a noise, you may want to check the settings have not been reset for them.

We’re not sure how many users this affects, but we’ve heard from a small number of people who have noticed that their iPhone alarm sound has been recently changed to ‘None’, which means they go off silently …

Apple is looking to continue its sales momentum in China with a limited-time discount campaign celebrating the Lunar New Year. Here are the details.

Two big Apple AI stories today, and they couldn’t feel further apart. First is Apple reportedly embracing chat as an interface for using Siri and AI throughout iOS and macOS later this year. That sounds like an amazing change of tune for the company. Apple would argue it isn’t a pivot away from avoiding chat, they just think chat is only useful if it’s deeply integrated with the system. Second is Apple developing an AI wearable pin. What strikes me about this one is how much it feels like a bad idea while the possibility of Jony Ive doing the same thing for OpenAI actually works.

Nestled in Bloomberg’s reporting earlier on Apple’s plans to revamp Siri as a chatbot with iOS 27, was an interesting tidbit on a possible change in the company’s cloud strategy. Specifically, Mark Gurman says Apple and Google are discussing running the next-generation Siri models directly on Google’s servers, not Apple’s.

With iOS 26.4, Apple is set to launch the first new LLM Siri features, using models running in Private Cloud Compute based on an older generation of Gemini. But the Siri chatbot coming in the iOS 27 cycle will apparently be based off the newer, smarter, Gemini 3 models. Running these latest-gen models seemingly requires higher performance servers than what Apple can deliver right now through its own Private Compute cloud infrastructure …

As spotted by TechCrunch, Danish users are turning to iOS apps to help them boycott American products. Here are the details.

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

Sponsored by Stuff: Stuff helps you get everything out of your head and into a simple, elegant system—closing open loops and reducing mental stress. Use code 9TO5 at checkout for 50% off your first year.

Sensor Tower has published its annual report, offering insights, trends, and data on the global mobile app market. Here are the main takeaways.

For the third year running, Apple has secured the top of Brand Finance’s Global 500 ranking, with an estimated brand value of $607 billion. Here are the details.

A new report by The Information claims that Apple has been developing an AirTag-sized wearable that could be released “as early as 2027”. Here are the details.

Apple reportedly plans to make a major pivot with Siri in iOS 27. According to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, Apple is developing its first chatbot with a version of Siri that will replace the existing experience.

Adobe has announced multiple AI-based features that are rolling out to Acrobat and Express, including the ability to create audio podcasts from files. Here are the details.

While Apple hasn’t released an AI chatbot to the public, the company does have multiple chatbot-style tools in use among employees.

A new report details Enchanté and Enterprise Assistant, two AI-powered apps used by Apple employees today.

Meta has announced what we all expected: ads are coming to Threads. This follows an initial roll out to select markets last year as part of a test.

Luxshare, a key Apple supplier based in China, has reportedly suffered a major data breach. If legitimate, the cyberattack could include sensitive and confidential information about products from Apple and other major tech companies.

I have been lucky enough to test a variety of different portable power solutions. There are endless options for different scenarios and different customers. You have high-capacity chargers, ultra-slim magnetic chargers, and I even recently reviewed a MagSafe charger with a built-in fan for heat dissipation. But sometimes the chargers that are the most practical and just work are the ones that are the easiest to recommend. The portable power bank I have used most in the last year is the Anker MagGo with Apple Watch charger. While it’s not the flashiest, it excels at a few things that other chargers just don’t. Let me explain.

The mid-week 9to5Toys Lunch Break is now ready to go starting with a rare discount on the official Apple iPhone Air MagSafe Battery now sitting down at a new Amazon all-time low price. That offer also joins one of the last chances at scoring M4 MacBook Air at $200 off and a notably low price on Apple’s latest black USB-C Magic Mouse at up to 37% off. We also have Anker’s new Smart Display Nano Charger down at $30, Apple’s 4-pack of AirTags at 35% off ($16 each), and even more down below.