9to5 Mac

• 9to5Mac Daily: August 18, 2026 – iOS 27 beta 6, AirPods leak
  August 18, 2026 by Seth Kurkowski
  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 Backblaze: Backup you can rely on. Save 20% with code 9to5daily.
• Apple Wallet driver’s licenses coming to these states next
  August 18, 2026 by Chance Miller
  At WWDC 2021, Apple announced support for storing your driver’s license in Apple Wallet on iPhone. At the time, Apple touted this as the last step before you can be “fully free of your physical wallet.” Here are the states where support for the Apple Wallet driver’s license feature is coming next …
• Find My, iCloud, and several other Apple services are currently down for some users [U: Fixed]
  August 18, 2026 by Marcus Mendes
  Update, 7:49 p.m. ET: All issues are now marked as resolved. The original story follows below. Apple’s System Status page confirms that consumers and developers are currently experiencing issues accessing some of its services. Here are the details.
• Comcast just turned millions of Xfinity routers into motion sensors
  August 18, 2026 by Ryan Christoffel
  Comcast launched Xfinity Shield today, a new home protection platform that includes a feature to turn routers into motion sensors. Here are the details.
• Firefox Smart Window adds AI web search, automatic tab groups, and more
  August 18, 2026 by Marcus Mendes
  Mozilla today announced new features to Firefox’s AI-powered Smart Window, which remains in beta. Here are the details.

Macworld

• Apple Watch Activity badges: National Parks Challenge on August 23
  August 18, 2026
  Macworld Achievement badges are a funny thing. You know they’re just a simple little bit of visual flair, they don’t even do anything, and yet for some reason you just have to collect them. Gamification can be a great motivator, and the achievement badges for the activity tracking on the Apple Watch have inspired many […]
• Save $100 on Apple’s blazing-fast M4 iPad Air before this discount vanishes
  August 18, 2026
  Macworld Apple iPad Air M4 View Deal (function () { document.querySelector("#sticky-promo-block a").addEventListener("click", function(e) { const debug = document.location.host.search(/lndo.site|go-vip.net/) !== -1; const text = this.closest("#sticky-promo-block").querySelector("p.promo-title").textContent; const data = { event: "stickyConversionUnitClick", eventCategory: "Sticky Conversion", eventAction: "Click", eventLabel: text }; if(debug)console.log("Sticky Conversion CLick – pushing to dataLayer: ", data); dataLayer.push(data); return true; }); })(); Apple’s latest iPad […]
• Upcoming Apple products revealed in the macOS 26.7 release candidate
  August 18, 2026
  Macworld We’re anticipating a slew of new products from Apple over the next several months. While Apple rarely preannounces products, there are ways to figure out the company’s plans. For example, MacRumors reports that the macOS 26.7 release candidate includes references to several new products. Well, several is putting it lightly. There are nearly 40 […]
• Why does Wall Street hate Apple now?
  August 18, 2026
  Macworld This might surprise anyone who’s listened to Tim Cook preach the good word, but by the standards of technology companies Apple is perceived as being mildly anti-AI. And in some ways that’s a good thing. In early summer the company’s shares enjoyed a $600 billion rally thanks to what Bloomberg described as “rising unease […]
• A20 Pro speed and efficiency improvements leaked? Not so fast…
  August 18, 2026
  Macworld You may have seen several news stories out there referencing this Fixed Focus Digital rumor on Weibo, claiming that it shows the speed and power efficiency improvements of Apple’s A20 chip coming to the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra next month. It’s important to note what is going on here, because this is […]

Technology

• Silicon Valley Executives Are Tech Fans. Just Not For Their Own Kids.
  August 18, 2026 by David Streitfeld
  At home, moderation and restraint are the rule for tech parents. Boredom is exalted. Maybe they’re onto something.
• Meta to Stand Trial Over Claims It Addicted Children to Social Media
  August 18, 2026 by Cecilia Kang, Eli Tan and Emmy Martin
  California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey have taken the social media giant to trial in the first bellwether federal case over child harm.
• ICE Bars Its Workers From Wearing Meta’s Smart Glasses on the Job
  August 18, 2026 by Eli Tan and Hamed Aleaziz
  The agency joins a growing number of workplaces and groups to ban Meta’s devices, which have spurred privacy concerns.
• Apple Removes Some Fees for App Developers in European Union
  August 18, 2026 by Kalley Huang
  The move followed a long battle with regulators over the company’s tight controls of its App Store.
• OpenAI Introduces ‘ChatGPT for Teens’ as Safety Concerns Grow
  August 18, 2026 by Cecilia Kang
  The artificial intelligence start-up announced a chatbot mode that will automatically limit some conversations to better protect young users.

Personal Tech

• I Tested a Popular A.I. Slop Detector. It Felt Empowering.
  August 14, 2026 by Brian X. Chen
  Pangram excels at distinguishing chatbot-generated words from human writing. But it’s not reliable for spotting artificial images.
• Follow the Markets and Track Stocks With These Free Apps
  August 6, 2026 by J. D. Biersdorfer
  Google Finance and Apple’s Stocks app have added new features over the years to make them more useful for tracking the markets and your investments.
• A U.S. Citizen Deleted His Phone’s Data. Now He Faces a Felony Charge.
  July 30, 2026 by Adeel Hassan
  Federal prosecutors charged a man returning to the United States with obstruction because he gave them a passcode that erased his smartphone during a customs search.
• Apple’s Siri Got an A.I. Brain Transplant. Try These 5 Prompts to Get Acclimated.
  July 30, 2026 by Brian X. Chen
  An upgrade transformed the beleaguered virtual assistant into a modern chatbot. It’s imperfect but worth trying.
• Why TikTok’s Algorithm Keeps You Trapped in a Breakup Loop
  July 26, 2026 by Jonathan Wolfe
  As social media companies face scrutiny over addictive design features, mental health experts cite a stream of breakup content as an example of the failure to protect users.