Phone users are sticking with Apple at unprecedented levels, according to a new nationwide survey, underscoring the growing strength of the company’s ecosystem and the challenges facing rivals trying to win them over.
And while Android users’ loyalty to their smartphone maker is noticeably weaker, that doesn’t mean huge numbers are switching to Apple.
What makes the Apple ecosystem so alluring? Individually, the iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple Watch might not be the best devices in their respective categories. Yet, when combined, they form one of the best ecosystems in the world.
It’s this Apple ecosystem — the so-called walled garden — that makes it almost impossible to ditch Apple devices. But what makes it so good?
If you’re working in an office or in the city, you’re probably inundated with noise from people chattering, cars running and nearby music. Your iPhone has a built-in feature called Background Sounds for playing rain noises or white noise to tune it all out.
Or, if you work at home and want some of that office or coffee shop ambiance, you can add some of those chatter sounds back in. You can even simulate a commute, with sounds of a bus, train, airplane or even boat.
You don’t need to download any apps or pay a cent. Background Sounds is a free feature on your iPhone, iPad and Mac. Let me show you how it works.
Stop me if this sounds familiar: Your old iPhone just doesn’t have the same pep it used to and you’re desperate to speed it up. Ignore the nasty iPhone conspiracy theory — the real reason for the slowdown is rooted in battery chemistry, diminishing amounts of available memory, and the evolving demands of modern iOS apps.
Fortunately, you can take steps to improve the speed of your older iPhone. Here’s what to do.
Apple secured a new agreement with Amazon ensuring the satellite features millions of iPhone and Apple Watch users depend on — including Emergency SOS — continue to work, even as the company that currently powers them is set to be acquired, the companies said Tuesday.
“This ensures our users will continue to have access to the vital satellite features they have come to rely on, including Emergency SOS, Messages, Find My, and Roadside Assistance via satellite, so they can stay safe and connected while off the grid,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, in an Amazon press release Tuesday.
You can change out your iPhone Lock Screen buttons from the standard flashlight and camera icons to whatever you want. There’s a huge selection of buttons you can swap in their place. Just about any button you can put in Control Center is a button you can put on your iPhone’s Lock Screen.
Plus, you can assign different shortcut buttons on different Lock Screens, making them context-dependent (and tied to a Focus Mode if you like). Apple offers a standard selection, but your options will vary depending on what apps you’ve installed.
Here’s how to swap out the iPhone Lock Screen buttons to put whatever you want at your beck and call.
Update: And just like that, now Lexus enters the fray. Reports indicate the Toyota-owned luxury brand will add support for iPhone car keys in the coming months, according to references found in Apple’s backend code. It joins many others.
From a single BMW model in 2020 to dozens of brands today, Apple Wallet’s digital car key keeps gaining momentum. Could it soon become as standard as a seat belt? It looks to be headed that way, at least — and for good reason.
Surprise! Apple might not release an iPhone Fold this fall.
Wait, it’s a joke. Sort of. It’s still virtually certain that Apple will introduce a folding handset in a few months. However, it reportedly won’t be named what everyone expects. A reliable source says the real name is (drum roll) … iPhone Ultra.
A new set of leaked images purporting to show Apple’s long-rumored folding iPhone surfaced online Sunday, offering what a tipster claims is a closer look at the device’s final design.
The camera hump has supposedly shrunk considerably. Take a look:
Apple’s Focus modes are a powerful way to change how your iPhone, iPad and Mac look and feel whether you’re driving, sleeping, relaxing or working. It’s all about fully immersing yourself in whatever you’re doing.
You can change all kinds of things: from who can reach you and which apps send notifications to custom Lock Screens, Home Screens and more. The tools can totally transform how your phone looks and works based on context. You don’t need all the same apps and widgets on your Home Screen while you’re at work or yoga as you do at home.
Setting up a Focus with rich customization makes your phone more personal. Keep reading to find out how.
You’re at the airport, phone battery at 8%, and a USB charging port is right there. You plug in — and your iPhone flashes an alert asking whether to allow an accessory to connect. Should you panic? Are you at risk of “juice jacking?” Probably not. But you should know what that allow-accessory message means, and how to make sure you’re charging safely.
Your iPhone is at serious risk of getting hacked if you haven’t updated it recently. Apple and security researchers warn that a sophisticated hacking tool known as DarkSword can compromise iPhones through malicious websites.
The fix is easy and available for every iOS device since 2015. Plus, it doesn’t require you to install iOS 26 or put Liquid Glass on your handset.
Go do it now!
I have a bunch of pro tips to help you organize the Notes and Reminders piling up in your iPhone. Apple has added tons of powerful new features over time, making them comprehensive tools for all the goings-on in your life.
With tagging, you can quickly filter and search through a big folder of notes or a long to-do list. You can easily put together a bunch of filters by date, location and tag to create a smart list of everything that needs your attention in Reminders. You can even set up template Reminders lists that you can copy at any time.
Let me show you how to set it all up.
Making a playlist in Apple Music is a great way to set the mood for a party, road trip or your own private time. You can create playlists for working, working out, studying, driving, doing dishes, etc. Your friends can contribute to your playlist, too. And you can share your masterpiece on your Apple Music profile.
In iOS 26.4, Apple added Playlist Playground, a new feature that lets you quickly create custom playlists via Apple Intelligence. On supported devices, you can type in any odd request — and your iPhone will do the rest. The results aren’t quite DJ quality, but they’re a good starting point if you want something specific or unique.
Here’s how to make a playlist by hand — and how to use the new Playlist Playground feature.
As Apple turns 50, it’s worth looking back on the company’s greatest accomplishments and lowest moments through history. If you don’t have time for David Pogue’s 600-page epic, Apple: The First 50 Years, maybe you can spare eight minutes to relive the single biggest piece of Apple news every year.
You can watch 50 years of Apple announcements compressed into a single video. Or, keep reading below for a quick rundown.
Apple produced an amazing string of hit products over its 50 years, but to paraphrase Napoleon the pig: Some are more important than others.
Here are the most important products in Apple’s 50-year history. And no, this list is likely not what you were expecting. They’re not necessarily the biggest or the most well-known.
March 29, 2012: A settlement ends the “Antennagate” controversy, as Apple gives affected iPhone 4 owners the chance to claim a whopping $15 payout. The settlement covers customers whose phones dropped calls due to its cutting-edge design, but were unable to return their handsets (or didn’t want a free bumper case from Apple to mitigate against the problem).
While it’s arguable whether a $15 payout was worth filing all the paperwork necessary to claim the cash, the Antennagate story — and the resulting class-action lawsuit — generated big headlines at the time.
Looking back over Apple’s first 50 years, it’s clear what the company’s greatest talent is: turning rivals’ niche products into mainstream hits.
Apple proves adept at releasing new products in categories that looked like failures because customers simply lacked interest. But then Apple figured out what its competitors were doing wrong and released its own versions that quickly became iconic.
Here are five examples of Apple turning other companies’ fiascos into triumphs.
Apple plans a top-to-bottom revamp of Siri in iOS 27 that turns the beleaguered voice assistant into an AI chatbot at the heart of iPhones, Macs and iPads, according to a new report.
Apple might even launch a standalone Siri app that, like competing apps from ChatGPT and Google Gemini, serves as a central hub for all the user’s interactions with the AI assistant.
iOS 26.4, which Apple released Tuesday, brings a bunch of great new features to your iPhone.
It adds eight all-new emoji — a couple that I’ll definitely start using often (in addition to a few weird ones, as always). Apple Music also receives several excellent new features, like concert listings coming up in your area, in addition to a refined user interface. And the Apple Podcasts app gets a big video upgrade.
Those come in addition to tons of other interface tweaks and a fix for a typing bug that has been annoying iPhone users. Here are all the new features you can look forward to in iOS 26.4.
Update: The sophisticated DarkSword hacking technique that came to light last week — capable of silently taking over iPhones the moment a user visits an infected website — just got worse for Apple users running older software, TechCrunch reported Monday.
Someone leaked versions of DarkSword on code-sharing site GitHub. That means DarkSword attacks likely will increase — especially since iOS expertise is not required to deploy the technique.
“This is bad. They are way too easy to repurpose,” iVerify co-founder Matthias Frielingsdorf told TechCrunch. “I don’t think that can be contained anymore. So we need to expect criminals and others to start deploying this.”
Apple spokesperson Sarah O’Rourke reminded people that “keeping software up to date is the single most important thing you can do to maintain the security of your Apple products.” So if you haven’t updated to the latest iOS for your device, do so now.
The iPhone Air accomplished one of the goals Apple surely had for it: It’s reportedly outselling the device it replaced — and by a wide margin. That said, the super-slim iPhone hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm.
Still, it’s far from the flop that some critics labeled it.
Apple’s iOS 26.4 update includes a small line in its release notes that is drawing outsized attention. It promises “improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly.”
While that might sound like a routine tweak, it appears to address a typing problem that has frustrated iPhone users for months.
Apple’s budget-oriented iPhone 17e packs a faster processor and more base storage — at a lower price — than the iPhone 16. But despite launching more than a year earlier, the iPhone 16 still holds an edge in several important aspects.
Here’s how the two affordable iPhones compare — and which one you should buy.
The new Serafim S3 Universal Mobile Game Controller is an Apple MFi-certified accessory that aims to bring console-level gaming to iPhone users with Hall effect magnet-based joysticks and more, the company said Monday. Priced at $89.99, S3 is available now on Amazon and the Serafim website.