Apple (PDF): Recent generations of frontier language models have introduced Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) that generate detailed thinking processes before providing answers. While these models demonstrate improved performance on reasoning benchmarks, their fundamental capabilities, scaling properties, and limitations remain insufficiently understood. Current evaluations primarily focus on established mathematical and coding benchmarks, emphasizing final answer accuracy. […]

The public betas are out for iOS/iPadOS/WatchOS/MacOS 26, and Dan Moren and Jason Snell cover them all at Six Colors. Here’s Moren on iOS 26:

Apple’s new design language, dubbed Liquid Glass, applies across all their platforms, but unsurprisingly, it feels most at home on the iPhone and iPad. That’s in part because of the touch interface; the literal hands-on nature makes the feel responsive and more like physical things that you’re interacting with. For example, dragging the new magnifying loupe across the screen, watching the way it magnifies and distorts text and images as it passes over them — this interaction has always been unique to iOS for practical reasons, but the way it feels here doesn’t have a direct analogue on other platforms.

For it now being late July, though, there remain a lot of glaring problems. I hope to be proven wrong, but I think the legibility/usability problems are going to make the 26.0 versions of Apple’s OSes unpopular. Functionally, iOS and iPadOS 26 betas 4 are solid. MacOS 26 Tahoe really adds some great productivity features. But visually, not so much for any of these OSes (especially MacOS) — and that, to me, is a serious problem.

Anyway, public beta commentary:

• Dan Moren on iOS 26.
• Jason Snell on iPadOS 26.
• Moren on WatchOS 26.
• Snell on MacOS 26 Tahoe.

Juli Clover: Apple is allowing members of its public beta testing program to download and install iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 starting today. You can sign up for the public betas on Apple’s beta website. The first public beta features the same content as the fourth developer beta that came out earlier this week, though […]

John Gruber (Mastodon, Hacker News): The ICEBlock app is interesting in and of itself (and from my tire-kicking test drive, appears to be a well-crafted and designed app), as will be Apple’s response if (when?) the Trump administration takes offense to the app’s existence. Back in 2019, kowtowing to tacit demands from China, Apple removed […]

Apple (MacRumors, Hacker News, Reddit, Slashdot): For just $19.99 per month, customers can protect up to three products in one plan, with the option to add more at any time for $5.99 per month for each device. With AppleCare One, customers receive one-stop service and support from Apple experts across all of the Apple products […]