There’s a lot more to talk about with iOS 18 in the new iPhones and we’re looking forward to iOS 17.4.1 in the iOS 17.5 beta 1 and more. This is your weekly Apple NEWS UPDATE for the week of March 20, 2024.
A New Store
Now Apple has a new store opening in Canada’s Square One Mall next Saturday on March 23rd at 10:00 AM. This was actually captured by someone on X or Twitter ApolloZinaoD who took some photos of it where it says get ready, great things are in store Apple Square One and the date that it opens. So it looks like it’s ready based on some great photos here and so if you’re in that area and you’re able to take some photos and you’re going there, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
iOS 17.4 – 10 Important Features & Changes You MUST KNOW
MacBook Air M1 Low Price
Now Walmart has actually started selling MacBook Air M1 for $699. That will get you 256Gb of storage or 8Gb of RAM. Also, not long after this, Best Buy actually started offering the same MacBook Air model for $649. So if you’ve been waiting for a MacBook, it’s a pretty good price.
Even though it does have lower end specs, it works great for regular tasks. You can even edit 4K video from your iPhone on it without any problem.
The Latest Apple News
Also, iPhone 15 models are starting to be assembled in other places around the world. They’re now being assembled in Brazil for the regular iPhone 15 models to diversify the supply around the world. So we have some assembled in China, some in India, some in Brazil and elsewhere.
We know Apple’s been working on AI, and they’ve recently published a new research paper going over a new method for training a large language model for that AI. You’ll see the actual paper here, and again I’ll link it in the description, but if you want to check it out, it goes over the different methods and everything else. You want to download the paper and see what it’s all about. So it’s all about machine learning. We’re expecting that to be a big part of iOS 18.
So we’re waiting for that along with iOS 17.4.1. Now as far as when that should be coming, well, we should expect that On probably could be later today, could be tomorrow. But I would expect it sometime this week. It seems like it’s ready. Many different websites show it in their analytics already and we’re just waiting for Apple to release it.
Apple Stopped Signing iOS Updates
Also, Apple stopped signing iOS 17.3.1, so they typically do that about a week or two before they release another one. So that again sort of confirms we’re waiting for this here to actually launch along with that Mac OS 14.4.1 update. We expect maybe some bug fixes, security updates, maybe a feature, but usually they’re bug fixes.
iOS 17.5 Beta 1 Release
Now with iOS 17.5 beta 1, we’re Still waiting for that as well and Apple seems to be delaying it a little bit maybe to bring it in line with what they did last year as far as their overall time line. Last year we had it toward the end of March, This year we had it at the beginning to comply with the European Union.
So it looks like probably toward the last week of March we could see that update iOS 17.5 beta 1, along with all the other betas, Visual OS 1.2 beta 1 and Watch OS and more. So I would expect maybe the beta next week and that would go along with maybe an announcement of WWDC 2024.
WWDC24 Announcement
Apple typically announces it in March. That will actually have June as far as the date of it, we could have it on June 3rd or June 10th, we don’t really know for sure and then they’ll send out invites a little bit later. But usually they announce that it will be taking place in June and they give a date at that point.
iOS 18 Updates
We’re also waiting for iOS 18 to be shown off at that WWDC event. Apple’s expected to change the name of Apple ID with iOS 18. This was in a recent story. So if you go into your settings, go to your Apple ID, you can see it here. They’re expected to make it named Apple account. That’s according to Mac rumours first, and now Mark Gurman has said it this week as well.
Also, I mentioned last week how Apple is planning to bring a new hearing add feature to the Airpods Pro in future updates. They’re also suppose going to be working on a feature that has a hearing test as well. So that’s something we heard this week from Mark Gurman. We’re expecting that along with many other accessibility updates, design overviews, maybe some other changes that we’re not expecting in a hopefully sort of a redesign of different things. I would love to see a different Control Center, maybe have split view and other things as well.
iOS 18 Ai By Google?
Apple is apparently in discussions with Google this week to use some of Gemini Ai technology, and they’ve been talking to Open AI as well that’s expected to be integrated with iOS 18, maybe with Siri and more. Maybe they just need some patents that Google or Open AI hold, or maybe there’s some technology they need to use or they need some help.
Either way, I would expect Apple to use maybe parts of it, but not all of it, as they would want their information private. This is just something we’re hearing that Apple’s working on as of last night, according to Mark Gurman.
Air pods, iPhone 16 and Other Rumors
Mark German also said this week that Apple is about to start production of the next generation Air pods. To launch later this year in September or October. Basically it would be a replacement for Air Pods 2 and 3 and basically have different changes with improved updates, improved fit with the next models, improved USB C charge cases as well as a mid-tier version that’s said to offer noise cancellation along with find my options to track the location if you choose them. So it looks like we could have that this year with Airpods Pro 3 launching next year. So it looks like we’ll get a refresh of Airpods 2 and 3.
They’ll still keep both models as sort of a low end and mid-tier option and then move on to the Pro models next year. I thought for sure they would update all of them and we haven’t really heard a whole lot about Airpods Max, but hopefully we’ll get an update to them as well. So Airpods Pro 3 look to be next year at least based off the current information.
Apples also apparently working on a version of air pods that have cameras in them that can scan the environment in future versions. So what that would entail, I’m not really sure, but it looks like they’re working on that and a leaker on Twitter or X has shown that a Chinese company has created a touch screen air pods case, and you can see the air pods case here with a touch screen display on it. and this was leaked in some Apple patents in 2021.
So it looks like Apple designed it, a Chinese company sort of looked at it and made their own version. So it looks like we could have a lot of changes to Airpods coming this year.
iPhone 16 Latest Leaks and Rumors
To all of the models, it seems when it comes to iPhone 16, while we keep hearing more and more, and it looks like Apple’s ramping up production on them very soon, we’re expecting an enlarged action button and you’ll see all the fingerprints on my iPhone here.
We’re expecting a larger action button, a capture button as well that would go along on the side, maybe making it easier to jump right into capturing video or photos and also we’re expecting larger displays, just slightly larger to fit the same frame but be slightly larger, maybe 6.9 inches.
We’re getting an updated 5G modem it seems, and updated cameras as well With maybe a new design on the iPhone 16 regular model that leaves them vertical like we have here so you can capture spatial video and audio. We’re also expecting updates to the chipset inside to take advantage of the new AI features in iOS 18.