June 2026

WWDC 2026

The WWDC started yesterday, June 8 and is going on all week.

Apple's Keynote has been posted (1 hour 16 mins):

Apple also posted a 1.5 minute summary, `Introducing Siri AI in iOS 27, with more power than ever. Transform your images with next-generation AI. Create photorealistic imagery for wallpapers, Contact Posters, and backgrounds across the system in Image Playground. Use a more conversational Siri AI with natural language abilities to edit and write emails, texts, and documents. Keep your personal information safe with Siri AI and update compromised passwords with just a tap.' Take a look:

Tim Cook posted this overview of Twitter/X:

Here is a good overview summary with more details by Macrumors:

Joanna Stern posted an update on iOS 27, but NOT the Siri-related items:

Craig Federighi details Apple’s collaboration with Google for Siri AI in iOS 27, reports 9to5mac. This is important:

The amount of Google Assistant we use is none,” Federighi said, emphasizing that Apple relies on none of the Gemini models Google deploys to its customers, none of Google’s client-side code, and no Google Search infrastructure as its knowledge backbone.

(cont'd) Craig Federighi said: `Of course, we don’t have the Gemini app as our app. In fact, none of that client code is part of how we run on iOS. For these models, we use none of the models that Google deploys to their customers, nor do we use the infrastructure and means by which they deploy models to their customers. And then, when it comes to the knowledge base, we of course don’t use Google Search or anything like that as the foundation of our system.

Apple’s Siri AI is not ‘Google Gemini with Apple branding’; here’s how it really works, reports MacDailyNews.

macOS 27 Finally Brings Direct Touch Control to Sidecar, reports Macrumors.

All the Liquid Glass Changes in macOS Golden Gate, reports Macrumors.

iOS 27 will add these features to your iPhone.

Apple announced greatly enhanced parental controls coming with iOS 27.

other iOS news

How satellite texting on an iPhone helped a hiker rescue a stranded dog:

iOS 26.5 has been released. Here are the new features. Watch (3 mins):

iOS apps

Do you sometimes need a secondary cell number, such as when you sign up for something, but don't want to be inundated with messages on your regular number? Consider TextNow. It's an app that runs on your iPhone and gives you a mobile number. You can preserve the number for $3.99 per year, or $1.99 per week. They offer other in-app purchases, but you don't need anything more.

podcasts

Inside a journalist's year of using Al for (almost) everything: listen to Fresh air's interview of Joanna Stern's year of using AI for everything.

Joanna Stern Turned Her Life Over to Al For A Year - Here's What She Learned: listen to Kara Swisher interview Joanna Stern.

tips & tricks

If you need a second phone number, 3rd party apps like TextNow mentioned above, can do the trick. But if you need a temporary or disposable email address, remember that Apple offers this to all iCloud+ users. Olga recommends it highly. She currently has 133 email addresses (they are aliases for her single iCloud address). Go to Settings > (your name) > iCloud and scroll to iCloud+ features > Hide My Email.

gadgets & accessories

Eufy offers many cameras for the home. Olga reported that Dan, her friend & neighbor recently got a Eufy outdoor camera for his house and is very happy with it. He got the eufy Security Floodlight Camera E340 Wired HomeBase S380 (HomeBase 3) Dan's videos are crisp and useful. The camera reacts quickly when it detects motion and adjust the angle. Eufy offers many models of outdoor cameras. Many Eufy cameras support Apple HomeKit, take a look at 5 ways to add smart home devices to HomeKit.

watch

How Apple Watch accelerometer-based sleep apnea feature works.

Here is a paper published by Apple: Estimating Breathing Disturbances and Sleep Apnea Risk from Apple Watch.

Blog post: How Apple Watch detects 89% of severe sleep apnea, posted by Empirical Health, a company `dedicated to preventing heart desease.'

privacy & security

`Privacy International and UCL student exposes how productivity suite like Office 365 offers features that can enable employers to access all communications and activities on Microsoft services without the employees' knowledge': Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep.

AI

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warns of the potential dangers of fast moving and unregulated artificial intelligence, while also racing against competitors to develop advanced AI. Watch:

general apps & services

The web service Privnote.com lets you write and send a note to someone or to a group that is private. As soon as it is read, it is automatically deleted. Or you can have it deleted within a period of time, such as 24 hours. This works with regular text, not images or other files. The service is free.

The website everynoise.com gives you a visual and interactive map of all music genres across the world.

next iPUG

Our next iPUG meeting will be on Tuesday, July 7, at 7 pm.