Monday March 9, 2026 3:50 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is continuing to test the iOS 26.4 beta, and the latest update is now available for developers and public beta testers. As testing goes on, there are fewer new features in each beta, but today’s release adds new emoji characters and a few other changes.
Apple added new emoji characters, including trombone, treasure chest, distorted face, hairy creature, fight cloud, orca, and landslide.
There are also new skin tone modifiers people wrestling and dancers with bunny ears, as well as a gender neutral option for the ballet dancer emoji.
Apple renamed the prior Reduce Highlighting Effects Accessibility setting to “Reduce Bright Effects,” and explained what it does.
Apple says the feature "minimizes highlighting and flashing when interacting with onscreen elements, such as buttons or the keyboard.
Apple has removed the RCS end-to-end encryption beta in the fourth beta of iOS 26.4 after testing it in the prior three betas. Apple already said that end-to-end encryption for RCS would not launch in the iOS 26.4 update, and would instead be introduced in the future.
Apple tested end-to-end encryption for iPhone-to-iPhone RCS conversations, and iPhone-to-Android conversations. iMessage communications are already encrypted, but in a future iOS update, full implementation of RCS encryption will mean that iPhone-to-Android text message conversations have the same level of encryption.
iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4 beta 4 are the first betas that are able to be installed on the new iPhone 17e and M4 iPad Air.
We have a list of all features found in prior betas in our iOS 26.4 feature guide.
Apple this week unveiled seven products, including an iPhone 17e, an iPad Air with the M4 chip, updated MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, a new Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, and an all-new MacBook Neo that starts at just $599. iPhone 17e features the same overall design as the iPhone 16e, but it gains Apple's A19 chip, MagSafe for magnetic wireless charging and magnetic...
Apple Planning 'MacBook Ultra' With Touchscreen and Higher Price
Apple is planning to launch an all-new "MacBook Ultra" model this year, featuring an OLED display, touchscreen, and a higher price point, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports. Gurman revealed the information in his latest "Power On" newsletter. While Apple has been widely expected to launch new M6-series MacBook Pro models with OLED displays, touchscreen functionality, and a new, thinner design...
First MacBook Neo Benchmarks Are In: Here's How It Compares to the M1 MacBook Air
Thursday March 5, 2026 4:07 pm PST by Juli Clover
Benchmarks for the new MacBook Neo surfaced today, and unsurprisingly, CPU performance is almost identical to the iPhone 16 Pro. The MacBook Neo uses the same 6-core A18 Pro chip that was first introduced in the iPhone 16 Pro, but it has one fewer GPU core. The MacBook Neo earned a single-core score of 3461 and a multi-core score of 8668, along with a Metal score of 31286. Here's how the...
