iOS 26 is on the way, bringing a pretty significant software update to iPhone and iPad. With a variety of interesting new features and notable visual changes like the Liquid Glass interface appearance style, Messages group chat polling and custom backgrounds, new ringtones, Preview app, and much more, the excitement around the release is understandable.
But before you go jumping into the iOS 26 update on iPhone, or iPadOS 26 update on iPad, you’ll probably want to take a little time to prepare your device for the next major system software version. Let’s review some of those helpful steps to get you started.
The release candidate build of iOS 26 for iPhone and iPadOS 26 for iPad has been released to users participating in the developer beta and public betas for Apple system software. The release candidate (RC) build is typically the final version that is released to the general public, assuming no major bugs or problems are discovered.
The iOS 26 RC build comes alongside the availability of MacOS Tahoe 26 release candidate, watchOS 26 RC, and tvOS 26 RC as well.
iOS 26 introduces the Liquid Glass interface appearance that is more translucent and shiny with some additional icon customization options. You’ll also find new wallpapers available, a revamped lock screen, new ringtone choices, and a revamped CarPlay appearance too. But that’s not all, you’ll also gain background wallpapers for Messages along with group chat polling, Preview app, improvements to Apple Intelligence if your device supports it, and more. iPadOS 26 gains all of that plus new multitasking windowing options for apps and a menu bar, along with Phone app.
Apple has released MacOS Tahoe 26 as a release candidate build (build number 25A5353) for users participating in the developer beta and public beta programs. The RC (release candidate) build for Tahoe comes alongside RC builds for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, tvOS 26, and watchOS 26 too. RC builds are often the final version released to the general public if no major bug or issue is found, and typically indicate the end of the beta testing cycle.
MacOS Tahoe 26 introduces the new Liquid Glass interface appearance to Mac which features more translucency and shinineness with less contrast. You’ll also gain new icon customization choices, new wallpapers, new screen savers, some newly redesigned icons, and other little changes for the interface. Additionally, MacOS Tahoe 26 includes a handy clipboard history feature within Spotlight, Launchpad has turned into an app launcher within Spotlight, Messages app gains background customizations and group chat polls, Phone app with voicemail comes to Mac, Journal app comes to Mac, and many other smaller features and changes.
Apple has released a series of updated products during their September 9 special event, with the focus being on new iPhone 17 models including iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro, along with new Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch Ultra 3, Apple Watch SE 3, and AirPods Pro 3.
The event itself follows Apple’s new normal script of being ultra produced and scripted with a huge cast of employees giving little presentations on whatever product they’re telling you about. There’s also plenty of cutscenes, video panning, and slow motion twirls of various products in various stages of production, lots of nearly AI-looking scenes of Apple executives talking in sterile environments soundtracked to what some people would call music, and tons of corporate marketing speak, which if you’ve already seen a modern Apple event you’ve seen this one too then, just swap out some product names and slides.
All the new products that are announced were what the mainstream rumor mill expected, with refreshed iPhone models, Apple Watch models, and updated AirPod Pro 3. If you want to get caught in the weeds of new chips and marketing lingo (“successive anodizing baths” etc), you can certainly do that, but basically every newly updated device is better than its predecessor. If you were hoping for a semi-synthetic humanoid robot assistant or intergalactic space ship, or some other ultra advanced technology indistinguishable from magic, well maybe that’ll be out next year, or next decade, or next century, because for now you get an improved iPhone and Apple Watch instead.
iPhone 17 Lineup Announced
As expected, the new iPhone 17 series is faster with better features than prior iPhone models. This should come as a shock to nobody, as Apple has yet to release a new iPhone that is slower with fewer features than a prior model (well, except when they removed the headphone jack anyway and yes I am still bitter about that).
You’ll find the base model iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and the iPhone Air, with the latter model being a new model introduced into the iPhone lineup that is thinner and lighter than the other iPhone models (remember when Apple used to just have one new iPhone model and it was always faster, thinner, and lighter than the prior iPhone model? Simpler times!).
Each new iPhone has a better camera and faster chip than prior models, with some new software-limited features too encouraging you to get a new iPhone.
All new models of iPhone 17 can be pre-ordered this Friday September 12, and will be widely available on September 19. Prices start at $1099 for iPhone 17 Pro, $999 for iPhone Air, and $799 for iPhone 17.
New Apple Watch Models
Apple Watch has been updated as well and Apple Watch Series 11 includes some new features you might appreciate, like a high blood pressure notification, which won’t give you your blood pressure reading directly, but will attempt to inform the user if over time their blood pressure is elevated. Kind of like the a-fib notifications. Also, the latest Apple Watch 11 is faster with better battery life than prior models and offers 5G connectivity.
Apple Watch Ultra 3 is also updated to be faster and better, with a slightly bigger screen too, and 5G connectivity.
Apple Watch SE 3 is new as well, which is also faster and better than prior SE models, but not so great that it overtakes the Series 11.
Perhaps the most exciting announcement for existing Apple Watch users is that Apple Watch Series 9 and newer will gain the high blood pressure notificaiton via watchOS 26 software update next week.
Apple Watch Series 11 starts at $399 and is available next week.
AirPods Pro 3
AirPods Pro 3 are freshly updated and include better audio, plus a heart rate monitoring feature, which is kind of intriguing to have on a pair of headphones. There’s also improvements to active noise cancellation and battery life.
Apple also announced that iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and tvOS 26 will be available for everyone to download on September 15, so get your devices backed up and ready to go for that.
And there’s your basic overview of what Apple announced today; updated iPhones, updated Apple Watch models, updated AirPods Pro. Exciting times! More to come.
WhatsApp for iPad has finally been released, bringing the popular messaging app to the Apple tablet in an official way for the first time ever. No more web-based WhatsApp chats are required, now with a dedicated iPad WhatsApp application, you can get an optimized and native experience directly on your device.
WhatsApp for iPad includes all the WhatsApp features you know and love, including all the standard messaging features, video calling, polling, custom backgrounds for chats, group chats, audio calls, and much more. Everything syncs with your other WhatsApp clients too, whether on iPhone, Mac, Android, too, Plus WhatsApp for iPad supports the array of iPad multitaskign capabilities, so you can use it either in full screen mode on its own, or as a windowed app in conjunction with other applications open on the same screen. And of course you’ll be using your regular WhatsApp account so all your chats will sync to your WhatsApp application on iPhone and Mac too.
Instagram is a wildly popular social network centered around photo and video sharing, but for the majority of its life it has been available only for iPhone and Android. But not anymore, as Instagram finally has made an app available for iPad users too.
The Voice Memos app is incredibly useful on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, but one thing that some users may wish to change is the Location Based Naming system that is automatically active with any created Voice Memos. We’ve previously discussed disabling location-based voice memo naming on iPhone and iPad before, but now we’re going to cover the same tip for Mac users.
Apple has released MacOS Tahoe 26 beta 9, along with iOS 26 beta 9, iPadOS 26 beta 9, and beta 9 updates for the rest of the OS 26 suite too. Usually the same build is released for developers and public beta testers in close proximity to each other, so that should be expected in this case too. (Update: the beta 9 build is 25A5351b and now available as a matching public beta 6)
MacOS Tahoe 26 brings the Liquid Glass interface to the Mac with more translucency and shinineness throughout the interface appearance, and there are also new icon customization options, new wallpapers, new screen savers, and some new icon designs like a dull Macintosh HD redesign. Mac users will also gain some handy new features like clipboard history as part of Spotlight, Launchpad has been merged into Spotlight, the Phone app comes to Mac along with the Journal app, and there are background customization options for Messages app, and group chat polling for Messages too, plus various other features and changes on the Mac.
If you have a MacOS Tahoe compatible Mac and you want to get an early look at the new operating system, anyone can install MacOS Tahoe 26 beta onto a compatible Mac, though it’s important to remember that beta system software is not as stable or reliable as final versions.
Apple has said that macOS Tahoe 26 will be released this fall, along with the rest of the OS 26 suite.
iOS 26 beta 9 has been released by Apple for iPhone, along with iPadOS 26 beta 9 for iPad, MacOS Tahoe 26 beta 9, and other OS 26 beta 9 updates for the rest of the Apple device suite. New betas typically arrive for developers first and the same build is released for public beta users soon after.
iOS 26 features a new translucenct and shiny interface appearance called Liquid Glass, new icon cusdtomizations, new wallpapers, a redesigned lock screen, new ringtone options, group chat polling and custom backgrounds in Messages app, Phone app improvements, enhancements to CarPlay, enhancements to Apple Intelligence, Preview app for iPhone and iPad, and more. iPadOS 26 includes the same features for iPad but also a new multitasking system and app windowing, a menubar, and the Phone app arrives on iPad too.
The final version of iOS 26 for iPhone and iPadOS 26 for iPad is set to be released this fall, according to Apple. Users who want to get an earlier experience with the new operating systems can install iOS 26 beta on iPhone or iPadOS 26 beta on iPad, but most people would be better served waiting for the final version to be released in the coming weeks.
Windows 95 was made widely available to the general public 30 years ago this week, on August 24, 1995. 30 years! It might not seem too thrilling today, but Windows 95 was a pretty big deal back in the day, being the first half-decent (ie: Mac-like) GUI to arrive on PC and a huge leap in usability from Windows 3.11. If you lived anywhere near a beige box PC in the mid-90s, you probably remember either running Windows 95 yourself or perhaps on a friends or colleagues computer. You got the Start menu, multitasking, a taskbar, and a much more user friendly interface that borrowed quite a bit from the Mac. Sure it might have crashed and given you a not entirely infrequent BSOD, but it was all part of the charm.
You might even remember when Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, and co, were dancing around on stage to the Rolling Stone’s song “Start Me Up” during the initial Windows 95 launch, here’s a short little clip of the Microsoft leadership team in action:
And what better way to celebrate than to run Windows 95 directly on your modern Mac, by simply downloading and launching a self-contained Windows 95 as an application that runs impressively well?
It’s a full Windows 95 installation and it runs great direclty atop MacOS, give it a try:
Celebrate even further by downloading this fun BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) wallpaper and setting it on your Mac, iPad, Windows PC, iPhone, Android, whatever:
Cheers to ex-Microsoft employee Brad Silverberg who reminded the world of the 30th anniversary of Windows 95 on X (the site formerly known as Twitter), we are over there too.
Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of Windows 95. It was a very memorable day. Special thanks to the team and all those who made it happen. pic.twitter.com/R8kCmKceuI
The Commodore 64 has been reborn from the dusty bins of nostalgia, with a slightly modernized twist. Retro computing enthusiasts and longtime computer users may recall the Commodore 64 as a fun way to tinker with tech, play games, and do some coding, and with the new Commodore 64 project you get all of that but with some nice modern amenities too, like HDMI output, wi-fi, ethernet, and USB. You can play over 10,000 original games. You can plugin your old cartridges, CRT screens, and disk drives. You can do a little coding with BASIC. The possibilities for retro computing fun are endless, it’s up to you to see where it takes you.
Amazon is taking $200 off the price of M4 MacBook Air models, with the 13″ starting at $799, and the 15″ starting at $999. With the powerful M4 chip with Apple Intelligence support, 13″ or 15″ LCD display (easy on the eyes for PWM sensitive!), all day battery life, Center Stage with FaceTime camera, backlit keyboard, MagSafe charging, two USB-C/Thunderbolt ports, dual display support, and more, these are fantastic and popular laptops for good reason.
VintageApple has long been a fantastic collection of retro Apple and Mac materials, including old magazines, catalogs, and user guides, and now they have added a whopper collection of over 150 vintage Mac programming books available for free.
If you’re a Mac user who installed a Safari beta version on a stable version of MacOS to experiment with beta Safari features, it’s possible that you might want to downgrade the Safari beta back to a Safari stable version. This can be tricky because if you install a beta version of Safari onto MacOS, it will default to overwriting the stable version of Safari on that Mac. So what should you do in this situation, how can you downgrade from a Safari beta back to a Safari stable build on MacOS? That’s what we’re going to address in this article.
For example, lets say you installed Safari 26 beta onto MacOS Sequoia 15.6, but you find that Safari 26 beta is too buggy to use reliably, or you just don’t like it for whatever reason. But by installing the Safari 26 beta onto Sequoia, you overwrote the stable Safari build and now you’re stuck with the beta, right? Wrong! There are a few different ways to return the Safari stable version to your Mac, as we’ll show you here.
AirPods 4 feature the iconic earbud design, and have many great features like gesture support, spatial audio, voice isolation, water and sweat resistance, Siri support, and USB-C charging.
Apple has returned Blood Oyxgen monitoring to Apple Watch making it a great time to get a new Apple Watch. Get Apple Watch Series 10 for $299 at $100 off, or take $150 off the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for just $650 down from $799. With an always-on display, fitness and activity tracking, heart rate monitor, ECG, irregular heart beat detection, crash and fall detection, emergency SOS, ovulation tracking, GPS, one handed operation with pinch gestures, water resistance, voice control, Siri commands, and, again, the return of Blood Oxygen monitoring, and more, these are fantastic wearables.
The M3 iPad Air is continuing to be offered at a $150 discount by Amazon, with the 13″ version being available for just $649 (down from $799) and the 11″ version being offered at $449 (down from $599).
iPad Air 11″ from $449, 13″ from $649 ($150 Off MSRP)
M3 iPad Air has Apple intelligence support, 128GB storage, 12MP front and rear cameras, Touch ID, LCD retina display, great battery life, support for Apple Pencil Pro, support for Apple Magic Keyboard, and more. These devices pair great with Apple Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil Pro, which are also available at discounts.
Amazon is taking $200 off the price of M4 MacBook Air models, with the 13″ starting at $799, and the 15″ starting at $999. With the powerful M4 chip with Apple Intelligence support, 13″ or 15″ LCD display (easy on the eyes for PWM sensitive!), all day battery life, Center Stage with FaceTime camera, backlit keyboard, MagSafe charging, two USB-C/Thunderbolt ports, dual display support, and more, these are fantastic and popular laptops for good reason.
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Cancel your vacations, tell your boss you can’t come in that day, reschedule your wedding, whatever it takes, because Apple has announced that a special event is scheduled for Tuesday, September 9, in the year 2025. They are calling the event “Awe Dropping”, and while it’s a theoretical possibility that we could shift into an alternate dimension where Apple will unveil a pet cloned dinosaur or gravitic space travel to Alpha Centauri powered by Siri (oh no), what’s far more likely is that we will remain in the realm of our known reality and the September 9 event will be focused on launching a new iPhone, as is typically the case with September events announced by Apple.
The September 9 event is set for 10 AM PT, and you’ll be able to watch the event live online from the Apple website and probably YouTube too. This means you could disrupt your family vacation, gather the entire family around a device screen, and sit around it to watch the event together. Or maybe you have Jury Duty that day, but instead of missing the event you could share the amazing September 9 event with your fellow jurors, or even the entire courtroom! Think of the possibilities, and do not let anything get in the way of watching the most important event in the history of the world.
It’s likely that Apple will follow the tech giant corporate-cheesy post-Covid script of overly produced pre-recordered videos with lots of skits, presentations, and endless hyperbole about the new products being launched, so grab your cans of Cheez Whiz and add the event to your calendar. Will it be the best iPhone ever? The fastest iPhone ever? The (insert marketing gobbledygook lingo here) iPhone ever? The potential adjectives and descriptors for the new iPhone are limitless!
Current rumors and speculation, and historical precedent, suggest the September event will focus on the introduction of the newest iPhone lineup, assumed to be called iPhone 17 (though there’s a rumor whisper that says Apple will switch to year labels for iPhone too, making this iPhone 26 just like iOS 26 – who knows). This could include iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Air, the latter of which is expected to be a thinner and lighter device. And, as will surely be a huge shock to everyone on planet Earth, the next generation iPhone models will probably be better than the prior generation models with improved processors and cameras. I, for one, cannot contain my excitement.
There are also rumors, coming deep from the seedy underground layers and global secret meeting rooms of the Apple Rumor Mill Illuminati Masters of the Universe, of new Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3 launching at the event, with some speculation suggesting those devices might get a modernized redesign, and more features as well. And there might be new AirPods coming as well. Those devices, if updated, would also be expected to be improved from the ones they are replacing.
We will also likely discover the precise release dates of iOS 26, ipadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, tvOS 26, and watchOS 26. Typically the newest iPhone ships with the newest iOS version, so that could be as soon as September 12, or the following week.
As for reading the tea leaves of the Apple event logo, some tea leaf rumors suggest the iPhone 17 Pro series might include a thermal camera feature, and if you’ve ever seen the 80’s action flick Predator, you already know the potential there, but like all rumors and speculation, it’s just that – rumors and speculation.
Stay tuned, we will all discover the latest and greatest from Apple soon! And don’t worry, by the time I’m writing about the actual unveilings of the event, some of my obnoxious snark may dissipate, if I don’t get fired before then for writing this.
Apple has released the fifth public beta versions of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26. The new builds match the just released 8th beta versions aimed at developers.
The primary focus of the entire OS 26 suite is the introduction of the new Liquid Glass interface appearance which features more translucency and shininess throughout the interface, along with new wallpapers, screen savers, lock screens, and myriad other new features and changes to the operating system.
The M3 iPad Air is continuing to be offered at a $150 discount by Amazon, with the 13″ version being available for just $649 (down from $799) and the 11″ version being offered at $449 (down from $599). These prices are available for a limited time of unknown duration, so if you’re in the market for a new powerful iPad, these are sure to fit the bill. Separately, Amazon is also offering nice discounts on the base model iPad, and iPad Mini too.
iPad Air 11″ from $449, 13″ from $649 ($150 Off MSRP)
M3 iPad Air has Apple intelligence support, 128GB storage, 12MP front and rear cameras, Touch ID, LCD retina display, great battery life, support for Apple Pencil Pro, support for Apple Magic Keyboard, and more. These devices pair great with Apple Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil Pro, which are also available at discounts.
The Apple Pencil Pro is compatible with the M3 iPad Air series as well as the M4 iPad Pro models, whereas the Apple Magic Keyboard is only for the iPad Air. Yes the iPad accessories compatibility situation is wildly confusing and Apple needs to simplify it.
