An ESPN Unlimited subscription seems like the easiest way to get into all the tennis action.
Leonard Zhukovsky/Shutterstock
With summer winding down and Wimbledon in the books, it’s finally time for the 2026 US Open Tennis Championships. The US Open starts on Sunday, August 30 and runs through Sunday, September 13, bringing some of tennis’ best and brightest to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York for the final Grand Slam of the season.
While the whole tournament will be viewable on broadcast TV, with matches primarily airing on ESPN, ABC and The Tennis Channel, the easiest way to watch is with an ESPN subscription and the ESPN app. If you’re looking to keep up with the US Open, here’s what you need to know heading into the championships and how to watch.
What are dates for the 2026 US Open?
Qualifying rounds for the US Open started on Monday, August 24 and continued through Thursday, August 27, according to the US Open TV schedule. Once the tournament starts in earnest on August 30, multiple matches, on some days including both singles and doubles, will run every day until Sunday, September 13.
Depending on your commitment, there should be interesting matches to watch each day, but here are the dates and times for matches that will likely be necessary to understand the narrative arc, as it were, of the 2026 US Open:
Sunday, August 30: First-round matches start, with matches beginning running from 12PM ET to 11PM ET.
Tuesday, September 8: Men’s and Women’s Singles Quarterfinals run from 11:30AM ET to 11PM ET.
Wednesday, September 9: Men’s and Women’s Singles Quarterfinals continue from 11:30AM ET to 11PM ET.
Thursday, September 10: Women’s Singles Semifinals run from 7PM ET to 11PM ET.
Friday, September 11: Men’s Singles Semifinals run from 3PM ET to 6PM ET, and then 7PM to 10PM ET.
Saturday, September 12: Women’s Singles Championship runs from 4PM ET to 7PM ET.
Sunday, September 13: Men’s Singles Championship runs from 2PM ET to 5:30PM ET.
How do you watch the 2026 US Open?
Alex Menendez/ufl/Getty Images
ESPN is the sole broadcaster who will show the entire US Open in 2026, so opting for an ESPN subscription is the simplest way to make sure you don’t miss any part of the tournament. While the US Open schedule marks some matches as only being on ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN+ or ABC, anyone who subscribes to ESPN Unlimited will be able to watch everything, according to ESPN’s announcement.
Specifically, paying for ESPN Unlimited gets you access to sports programming across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, ESPN Deportes, SECN, ACCN, ESPN+, ESPN on ABC, SECN+, ACCNX, NFL Network and CW Sports. That should cover all your bases when it comes to the 2026 US Open.
You can sign up for ESPN Unlimited for $32 per month or $300 per year. If you’re interested in a package with other streaming services, a Disney+, Hulu and ESPN Unlimited bundle is also available for $36 per month. Once you’re signed up, all of ESPN’s 2026 US Open coverage is easily accessible in the streaming service’s US Open hub.
Who is playing in the 2026 US Open Championship?
As its name implies, the US Open is technically open to both amateur and professional players, but naturally some of the most exciting matchups concern well-known pro players. On the men’s side, Carlos Alcazar is defending his 2025 US Open crown, while Aryna Sabalenka is doing the same thing on the women’s side.
You can read through the US Open’s rundown of the top players in this year’s tournament for a more detailed look at who’s playing. Rosters for all the men and women playing in the tournament are also available to view online.
I’m old enough to have been taught a bunch of skills that are now essentially dead. Shorthand is one of those skills that I learned and used, and has since been pushed out of my brain by “Simpsons” quotes. I look at the lines and squiggles now, and it makes absolutely no sense.
Another skill that’s come and gone is dictation and transcription. I had a number of recorders over the years — from tape to electronic — and used them extensively. I’ve lost count of how many recorders have burst apart when they were dropped.
Dictation and transcription gave way to speech-to-text software. I remember trying this in the late 1990s and feeling it had potential, but it was also frustrating. As someone taught to type, the keyboard was always quicker and cleaner… until recently.
Thanks to a hearty chomp from a disease-ridden Scottish tick, I’ve been left with a small amount of cramping and neuropathy in my hands. The symptoms are more annoying than debilitating, but they did leave me wondering if non-keyboard options had improved.
This is the path that got me to try the Comulytic Note Pro AI Voice Recorder, a credit card-sized recorder that uses AI to organize your thoughts, meetings, and memos.
There are two parts to this system — the physical recorder and the app that leverages AI to get things done.
The recorder
Let’s start with the recorder.
Shaped like a small stack of credit cards, the Note Pro AI voice recorder measures approximately 3.37 x 2.04 x 0.12 inches and weighs just one ounce. It reminds me of the Bluetooth finder cards you buy for your wallet or purse, but as I’ll get to shortly, it’s missing one feature they have in common.
It has a tiny 128 × 80-pixel display along one side, and a single button. A press starts off a recording, another press stops it.
The user interface is about as simple as it gets.
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET
The unit is packed with a triple-mic array featuring AI noise reduction, an effective range of up to 15 feet, and 64GB of internal storage for recordings.
Inside is a battery that offers 45 hours of continuous recording and a whopping 107 days of standby. It comes with a magnetic slip case that attaches to a smartphone and a proprietary charging cable that connects to the pins on the back of the card.
The app
Then there’s the app (iOS/Android), which is where the voice recordings go for AI processing. You can find an app for both iOS and Android, and connecting the recorder to the app is very easy to do.
Every recorder comes with a free Starter Plan that offers unlimited free transcription and basic AI summaries; however, advanced features such as Advanced Summary, Instant Abstract, and Ask Comulytic Assistant require a paid subscription starting at $10 a month.
The app is “busy,” and works hard to upsell premium features.
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET
The recordings are offloaded from the recorder to the app, where all the AI magic happens, and it becomes the hub for everything you do with the recorder.
And none of this AI is bespoke to Comulytic; the app leverages third-party services.
Comulytic claims that the recordings are encrypted using AES and that everything is done to meet SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, GDPR, CCPA, and CPRA requirements, and we will have to take their word for it.
My verdict after two months of use
I want to preface what follows with some caveats. First, note-taking, whether shorthand or voice notes or some AI-powered speech-to-text system, is very personal, and how I do it will almost certainly differ from how you do it. Keep that in mind.
Much like a notebook and pen, this sort of device is a blank slate, ready for the user to leave their mark. And just as a notebook’s effectiveness depends on the quality of your handwriting, and how well you are at putting down your thoughts, this device here relies quite a lot on the clarity of your voice and thoughts. Someone who speaks clearly and concisely is going to have a very different experience from someone who mumbles and waffles.
I recorded hours of conversations — with permission where third parties were involved — under a variety of situations. Sometimes the recorder was on a table in front of me, other times it was in the cargo pocket of my trousers. Irrespective of the recorder’s location, I was getting excellent speech-to-text accuracy, well in excess of the 98% that Comulytic claims. And I was getting this accuracy out of the box, without giving it my voice profile.
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET
In fact, I felt accuracy worsened after I added my profile. Counterintuitive, I know, but this was my experience, and I ended up deleting the training I’d done. Overall, it’s spookily good, and up there with the dictation features that Apple has built into the iPhone and Mac.
I wish I could say the same about the ability to differentiate between speakers. This was hit-and-miss at best. It could be working fine one minute, only for it to suddenly stop working before kicking back into life again.
The app also tries very, very hard to get you to subscribe to the premium services. Features like the AI-powered instant abstract were useful, but not useful enough that I’d be willing to pay for them. Maybe this is because I’m used to using dictation, I’m good at getting my words down in a summarized way, and I don’t attend a lot of meetings and such that need condensing.
The app is always trying to upsell!
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET
Battery life does not disappoint, and it feels like this recorder can go on forever. What I’m less happy about is the proprietary magnetic charging cable that I need to avoid losing. Spares do exist online, and I also discovered that the cable for my Seeed Studio SenseCAP LoRa mesh tracker card worked for charging. Bonus!
However, I hate proprietary charging cables, and I wish that these makers would take a leaf out of the Bluetooth finder card market and build in support for wireless charging. The solution exists, and I hope next-gen AI voice-note recorders adopt it.
Two lingering concerns
The more I used the Note Pro AI voice recorder, the more I liked it, but I couldn’t shake a couple of concerns. First, there’s just too much AI for my liking. Even with basic transcription, the robotic overlords take liberties, and the output is nowhere near as faithful to the original recording as a human transcriber would be.
Also, given the direction that AI is going with watermarking (a feature that will aid AI companies more than anyone, because it will allow AI slop to be identified and prevented from being added to training data), it’s not long before anything and everything that comes from a device like this will have AI’s digital fingerprints all over it, and this could result in anything that’s outputted from this tool to get a “touched by AI” aura label stamped onto it.
The other issue is related to privacy, including laws surrounding consent to being recorded. This is a deep rabbit hole, should you choose to make the leap, with different rules in different territories. Be aware that these sorts of rules exist.
Alongside this is the backlash against recording tools that devices like Meta Glasses have sparked (it reminds me of the outcry around the original Google Glass, but Meta’s hardware is far more mainstream and ubiquitous). I’ve witnessed hate directed at Meta Glasses, and it’s not pretty. A voice recorder is not in the same category, but sensitivity may still be needed.
A way I found to seem more obvious and weird when using this recorder in public was to wear my AirPods. They don’t connect to the recorder or do anything, but they did make it look like I was on a call, rather than creepily talking to myself.
ZDNET’s buying advice
The Comulytic Note Pro AI voice recorder currently costs $116, with 10% off the usual price. For that money, you get decent hardware that connects to a pretty decent, although sometimes annoying and rather cluttered, app that tries its utmost to upsell every time I touch it.
If all you want is to have AI transcribe your voice, this tool will do the trick at no extra cost. And it will do it rather robustly if it’s just one of you speaking, but might (unless you have more success than I did) mash together two or more speakers.
But if you want to use one of the many advanced features sprinkled throughout the app, it’s going to put its hand in your pocket for a subscription. And this is where you’re going to have to stop and think, because there’s quite a spread between the monthly one-off prices and annual billing (the first “Premium” tier is $14.99 per month, or $120 if you buy an annual subscription).
If you need to remember stuff, either things that come tumbling from your head or others, and you’re a bit of a geardo and like having something new to play with, you’ll likely find cool ways to use a tool like this. But if you’re a bit of a curmudgeon, dislike AI, or don’t want to have yet another thing in your life to keep charged (with a proprietary cable, no less), this might be something to pass on.
Apple takes its sweet time adopting a new trend or technology, but when it does, it delivers one of the best implementations ever. That’s exactly what everyone is expecting from the company’s first foldable. Call it the iPhone Fold or the iPhone Ultra, the Cupertino giant has more riding on this launch than perhaps any product launched in the last few years, and it could break cover later this year.
Apple has since confirmed its September 9, 2026 event date, with the tagline “Surprise and shine,” and sent invitations on August 26. The ‘surprise’ in the tagline could be a hint about the foldable iPhone. We’re now just days away from the iPhone Ultra’s expected reveal, and here’s everything you need to know about it.
iPhone Fold / Ultra: At a glance
Specification
Details
Name
iPhone Fold or iPhone Ultra
Apple yet to confirm the official name
Release date
Should be September 9, 2026
Availability possibly October–December 2026
Starting price
$1,999–$2,500
256GB / 512GB / 1TB storage options rumored
Form factor
Book-style fold (horizontal)
Similar to Samsung Galaxy Z Fold but with a wider aspect ratio when unfolded
Inner display
~7.76–7.8 inches, OLED
4:3 aspect ratio; near iPad mini-sized when unfolded
Outer display
~5.3–5.5 inches, OLED
Usable as a standard iPhone when folded
Crease
Near-invisible
Apple reportedly pursued elimination “regardless of cost”
Chip
A20 or A20 Pro
Based on expected September 2026 launch timeline
Biometrics
Side-mounted Touch ID
Face ID likely dropped to save internal space
Cameras
Dual rear (main + ultrawide), no telephoto
One front camera on inner display; one on outer display
Battery
5,000–5,500 mAh
Largest ever on an iPhone, per Weibo leakers
Frame material
Titanium and aluminum
Could use liquid metal hinge
iPhone Fold / Ultra: Latest News
August 26, 2026: Apple confirms its September 9 event.
August 24, 2026: Luxury customizer Caviar unveils several custom “iPhone Ultra” editions, priced from $13,840 to $18,840, months before Apple’s own official reveal.
July 11, 2026: A leaked regulatory filing suggests the iPhone Ultra uses a dual-cell battery (1,921mAh + 2,962mAh) totaling ~4,883mAh.
July 6, 2026: Apple reportedly raises its foldable production target to around 10 million units for the year, per Nikkei Asia; IDC pegs the average selling price at $2,500.
June 16, 2026: Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports Apple is already developing a second-generation foldable, codenamed V78, for a 2027 release alongside the 20th-anniversary iPhone.
May 26, 2026: A report by Letem světem Applem (via PhoneArena) shows the purported iPhone Ultra inside a protective case, revealing almost everything about the phone’s design.
May 26, 2026: A claim from Instant Digital (via Weibo) suggests that Apple is facing problems in improving manufacturing yields during the pre-assembly process. The issue is related to Surface Mount Technology (SMT).
May 19, 2026: Chinese tipster Digital Chat Station (via Weibo) shares that Apple could adopt a similar crease-free solution as Oppo Find N6.
May 16, 2026: Chinese tipster Instant Digital (via Weibo) claims that Apple has achieved a visually crease-free foldable display with “long-term stability.” The core problem, however, is improving the hinge reliability.
May 11, 2026: A report from MacRumors states that the first foldable iPhone could arrive in just two colors at launch.
April 7, 2026: After rumors about Apple hitting a development snag with the foldable, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman pushed back by reinstating the September launch window.
March 16, 2026: Given that the device will run on iOS, and not iPadOS, it might miss out on some of the most popular apps or the advanced multitasking features built for iPads.
When will Apple release the iPhone Fold?
One of the most credible sources of information for upcoming Apple products, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, remains confident that the iPhone Ultra or iPhone Fold is on schedule for a September 2026 launch, at the company’s most important fall hardware event, which has also become one of the most important events in the consumer tech industry.
As mentioned earlier, Apple has confirmed its September 9 launch event. Although the devices haven’t been confirmed yet, we could see the iPhone Ultra join the two iPhone 18 Pro models at launch.
Apple has spent years watching from the sidelines, as Samsung, Google, and a couple of other Chinese companies reveal their foldables, and it wouldn’t risk revealing its first foldable through a separate event, one that might not have as much awareness or gather as much attention as its iconic fall event.
I believe the iPhone Ultra could be the last announcement, after the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max reveal.
On the flip side, analyst Tim Long has flagged that shipments for the iPhone Fold might not begin until December 2026, implying the announcement and arrival could be separated by almost three months and corroborating a report by Nikkei Asia about Apple hitting development snags with the foldable related to engineering problems.
More recent reporting suggests the bigger risk is a staggered international rollout. Some supply chain sources claim that Apple might keep the iPhone Ultra US-only at launch. Buyers in other markets might have to wait a couple of months before getting their hands on it.
Date
Rumored milestone
Status
Sep 9, 2026
Announcement alongside iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max
Confirmed
Sep 2026
U.S. availability
Likely
Oct–Dec 2026
Wider international rollout, potentially staggered by region
Likely
2027
Full launch pushed due to engineering failures
Now unlikely — production has reportedly been raised to 10 million units, suggesting confidence in the September timeline
I think it makes sense, and for one good reason. Releasing the foldable iPhone about three months after the regular iPhone 18 Pro models ship would give customers and Apple stores a chance to catch their breath, and, at the same time, create more hype for the foldable. It would also let people decide whether to spend a fortune on an iPhone that folds in half or settle for the Pro or Pro Max.
How much will the iPhone Fold cost?
On pricing, sources largely agree: the iPhone Fold won’t be cheap, not by a long shot. Ming-Chi Kuo places the starting price between $2,000 and $2,500, a range that Gurman seems to agree with. However, we’ve also heard rumors that the starting price could be less than $2,000.
Sonny Dickson
I believe a $1,999 starting price could be the sweet spot: high enough to reflect the technology but just below the psychologically daunting $2,000 ceiling.
A recent research firm, IDC, now expects an average selling price closer to $2,500, with top-storage configurations reaching $3,000 (via 9To5Mac). Apple has reportedly raised its production target to around 10 million units for the year, up from earlier estimates of 7–8 million.
The dummy models Sonny Dickson shared on X in April 2026 make this immediately apparent. Both the cover screen and inner screen are noticeably broader than existing book-style foldables; Apple is clearly charting its own way.
According to Ming-Chi Kuo, the foldable iPhone could come with a 5.5-inch outer display and a 7.8-inch inner screen, both measured diagonally, both featuring an OLED panel. A MacRumors report goes further, citing specific resolutions: 2,088 x 1,422 on the 5.49-inch cover screen, and 2,713 x 1,920 on the 7.76-inch inner panel.
The inner screen could be closer to a 4:3 aspect ratio, as opposed to Fold 7’s 10:9, to better handle side-by-side app multitasking and video consumption without the black bars on the top and the bottom. While the inner screen could get Apple’s ProMotion display technology (up to 120Hz refresh rate), the cover screen could be limited to 60Hz, though that might not sit well with buyers who’re shelling out $2,000 for the smartphone.
yeux1122 / Naver
There should be a punch-hole cutout on the cover screen. The inner screen will also have a front camera, though whether it’s a punch-hole or under-display remains unconfirmed. On the back, the phone might feature a camera visor, similar to the one we’ve seen on the Pixel phones, with a double-camera array toward the left and an LED flash and microphone on the right side.
The frame could use a combination of titanium and aluminum. The most important design challenge, for Apple, is the foldable’s crease. On the crease front, Apple reportedly pursued a dual-layer ultra-thin glass structure and a liquid metal hinge to minimize it.
Prototype testing in May revealed a hinge rattling issue, but a follow-up leak on May 19 from DCS claimed Apple had since locked in both the hinge and panel design (via Notebookcheck), with the solution mirroring the near-crease-free approach used on the Oppo Find N6.
Shimul Sood / Digital Trends
On colors, the picture has narrowed. Leaked case and camera-protector leaks from Sonny Dickson point to silver/white and a darker blue or indigo option, broadly consistent with the “just two colors.” MagSafe remains a genuinely open question. Some leaked dummy units show no visible magnet ring, while later leaked third-party case designs include circular cutouts consistent with MagSafe magnets.
Performance and software
Under the hood, the iPhone Fold or Ultra will most likely run on one of Apple’s A20 chips, built on TSMC’s 2nm fabrication process. With more transistors on the chip, the chips could be up to 15% faster and 30% more efficient than the A19 series (via WCCFTech). Whether the foldable gets the regular A20 or the A20 Pro chip remains a point of contention.
Given what the company might charge for the device, customers will likely hold out for the A20 Pro chip; it doesn’t matter if it’s a binned version to control the performance and thermals. What’s less debated, however, is the packaging. Apple could use TSMC’s Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module (WMCM) technology, which stacks RAM directly onto the chip wafer alongside the CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine.
The result could be faster RAM access, leading to better performance, less heat generation, and improved on-device Apple Intelligence performance. For those wondering, the iPhone Fold could ship with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM, the same amount as the iPhone 17 Pro and the purported iPhone 18 Pro. Storage could span across three tiers: 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB.
On the connectivity front, we could get Apple’s second-generation C2 modem (same as the iPhone 18 Pro), the successor to the C1X modem on the iPhone 17e, which would also bring mmWave 5G support to the foldable. The device could also be eSIM-only, given the limited internal space.
As I mentioned earlier, the iPhone Fold or Ultra will most likely feature Touch ID instead of Face ID, a compromise that might sting at first, but given that fingerprint authentication is already present on existing iPads, it shouldn’t take long to get the hang of.
Out of the box, the iPhone Fold is expected to run iOS 27, and a special version of the operating system no less, built around utilizing the additional screen real estate on the foldable.
Apple
Like the iPhone 18 Pro, the iPhone Ultra will also run on iOS 27 out of the box. Alongside the new Apple Intelligence features, Siri AI, and deeper cross-app context already available in the public beta, the operating system update could also bring several improvements, particularly useful on a foldable.
Overall, split-screen multitasking could make the most headlines. Per reports, the phone should be able to run two apps side-by-side, perhaps with iPadOS-like layouts that better use the larger inner display. Code found in iOS 27’s beta version suggests that the software should be able to recognize whether the phone is open, closed, or positioned at a particular hinge angle.
Cameras and battery
On paper, the iPhone Fold or Ultra’s camera systems don’t look as good as the iPhone 18 Pro, or the iPhone 17 Pro for that matter, and for a device that might cost twice as much, that isn’t a trade-off worth ignoring.
The iPhone Fold is expected to come with two 48MP sensors on the back, similar to the baseline iPhone 17, one with a wide lens and another with an ultrawide lens. What’s missing here, you might ask? It’s the telephoto lens found on the Pro models, and I think it’s likely due to space constraints in the foldable’s chassis that Apple might not include a dedicated zoom lens.
A November 2025 JP Morgan forecast (via MacRumors) also claimed that Apple might drop the LiDAR module and optical image stabilization on the foldable. While the first might be okay, the second could be a dealbreaker, especially for a smartphone that costs around or over $2,000. If I were to presume, the company will lean on computational photography and the A20’s NPU to compensate for the lack of hardware.
The same forecast also says about a 24MP under-display selfie camera on the inner screen. Whether it will retain Center Stage functionality from the iPhone 17 series isn’t clear yet, and neither is the resolution of the punch-hole camera on the cover screen.
Here’s everything we know about the iPhone Fold so far:
– 5.5” cover / 7.8” inner display – Nearly invisible crease – Touch ID – Apple C2 modem – 48MP dual rear camera – 5400~5800mAh battery – iOS 27 with Split View
Talking about the battery, the iPhone Fold is rumored to ship with the largest battery on an iPhone, ever. According to Chinese tipster Fixed Focus Digital (via Weibo), the foldable could sport a 5,000 to 5,500 mAh battery, which, if true, could be bigger than the Fold 7’s 4,400 and the Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s 4,821 mAh battery.
However, a more recent, more specific leak from Digital Chat Station, citing a regulatory filing from Apple’s battery supplier, points to a dual-cell design instead, with two separate cells rated at 1,921mAh and 2,962mAh for a combined ~4,883mAh. But the figure itself is a step down from the original 5,000–5,500mAh estimate, and somewhat ironically, it would actually be smaller than the standard iPhone 18 Pro Max’s rumored ~5,567mAh battery,
The Razr Fold has a 6,000 mAh battery, but Cupertino’s foldable might beat it in usage time, mainly due to better hardware-software optimization and its chip’s superior efficiency. Initial rumors hinted at a silicon-carbon battery in the purported foldable, but none of the most credible sources have supported the notion.
Contrary to earlier rumors, recent pictures of the iPhone Fold, from a leaked case listing (via PhoneArena), suggest it might feature MagSafe charging after all. However, if that doesn’t happen, the iPhone Fold will be the first high-end iPhone to move out of the production line without MagSafe, since the iPhone 11 Pro, a genuinely baffling omission at $2,000.
Bottom line
The iPhone Fold is shaping up to be one of the most consequential product launches in Apple’s history, and one of the most expensive. While the company might actually achieve a crease-free display and create an ultra-durable foldable that passes the test of time, the compromises are hard to ignore, especially at an asking price north of $2,000.
Apple needs to do what it does best: stick to its core instincts and make the product work at all costs. With the September 9 event now locked in, we won’t have to wait much longer to find out if it does.
Apple’s annual fall event takes place on Wednesday, September 9, when it is expected to unveil new iPhone 18 Pro models, the first foldable iPhone, an Apple Watch Series 12, a fourth-generation Apple Watch Ultra, and potentially AirPods 5. Apple may also make some additional new products available at its “Surprise and shine” event, but there are a handful of rumored upcoming devices that we don’t expect to make an appearance this month.
To help set expectations ahead of Apple’s “Surprise and shine” event, here are the products that Apple is unlikely to announce in September, but rather later on in the year or in 2027.
iPhone 18
Strange as it sounds, Apple’s fall event this year will be missing a new regular iPhone. The successor to the iPhone 17 isn’t expected until spring next year, as part of Apple’s reported split-launch strategy. Going forward, Apple will dedicate its annual September event to its more expensive Pro-model iPhones and successive generations of its upcoming foldable iPhone.
The iPhone 18 could adopt Apple’s upcoming 2-nanometer A20 chip. As for memory, information is mixed. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expects the device to have 9GB of RAM, 1GB more than the iPhone 17, while analyst Jeff Pu believes Apple will upgrade it with 12GB. If the iPhone 18 is limited to 9GB RAM, it will not support all Apple Intelligence features.
The iPhone Air that came out in September 2025 alongside the iPhone 17 lineup didn’t sell as well as expected, and a second version is no longer believed to be coming in September 2026. Despite some debate about the future of the iPhone Air, the latest rumors suggest a new model is still in development, and will likely arrive in spring 2027 alongside the iPhone 18 and iPhone 18e.
Apple is said to be adding a second camera to the next iPhone Air to make it more appealing to consumers and to justify its $999 starting price. Apple also wants to improve battery life, either through an increased battery size or improvements to efficiency. Given that the design of the new model is similar to the current design, there may not be room for a larger battery. The device will use an A20 Pro chip built on Apple’s new 2nm process, so it could feature better efficiency.
New Apple Watch SE 4
The current Apple Watch SE 3 is Apple’s most affordable Apple Watch option. Apple updated it in September 2025, but we are not expecting a new model in 2026, and there’s no word yet on when a new version is coming.
New Macs
Apple reportedly plans to release an updated 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M6 chip in late 2026, followed by a major high-end MacBook Pro redesign in late 2026 or early 2027. Reportedly dubbed “MacBook Ultra,” the new 14-inch and 16-inch models are expected to feature M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, an OLED display, a touch screen, a Dynamic Island, and a thinner design.
Apple is also said to be readying new iMac models with an upgraded chip and new color options. The new version is likely to be an updated 24-inch model with an M6 chip, replacing the existing M4 model that arrived in October 2024.
While it isn’t impossible, we’re unlikely to see any Macs debut on September 9. Apple typically uses its fall event to focus on new iPhone and Apple Watch models. The company usually unveils new Macs in October via press release or a separate event.
Possibly, Maybe
In addition to new iPhone 18 Pro models, Apple Watch models, and AirPods, Apple is expected to prepare other products for release this year. Still, the company is unlikely to draw too much attention away from its flagship smartphones, and may choose to save the following products for a separate event or launch them via press release in October or November:
What are you looking forward to most from Apple this year? Let us know in the comments.
Documentation files on more than 100 websites are referencing potentially dangerous executable content that gets installed automatically when visited by many AI agents. A few dozen companies, some of them Fortune 500s, are among those that executed proof-of-concept code. At least one misconfigured site is directing visitors, human or AI, to live malware.
The potentially dangerous content is in llms.txt and llms-full.txt files, an emerging convention websites employ to provide machine-readable summaries of the site’s content and its high-level structure. These files are the AI equivalent of the robots.txt standard that instructs search engines how to index the site’s content. Google Lighthouse, a tool for helping web developers, has more here. Correctly configured llms.txt and llms-full.txt files for Cloudflare are here and here.
How the researchers found it
Researchers at a stealth startup in Israel scanned 6,214 live domains belonging to defense contractors, Fortune 500, and Big Tech companies. Of the 8,265 llms.txt and llms-full.txt files they found (many sites hosted both an llms.txt and an llms-full.txt file), 120 of them, each on a different site, pointed to one or more code packages or domain names that weren’t registered. To test what happens when an AI agent processes such files, the researchers registered a handful of the unclaimed names and hosted packages that caused any machine executing them to reach out to their server. Within an hour, the researchers received a phone-home response from a Fortune 500 company. Over time, they got a few dozen more, some from more Fortune 500 companies and others from startups. Their beacon also recorded the chain of parent processes that spawned each install, ultimately revealing that coding agents, including Claude, OpenAI’s Codex, and Nous Research’s Hermes, were involved. Anthropic, OpenAI, and Nous Research did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
“The trust model is broken,” Alon Hertz, one of the researchers, wrote in an interview. “Agents treat vendor docs as ground truth and don’t question them—and neither do the humans supervising them. Agentic AI usage is exploding, and agents are spreading across every layer—SaaS, cloud, endpoint. As they multiply, so does the supply-chain surface, and today’s guards don’t cover it.”
A French court has for the first time recognized cosmic radiation as a contributing occupational factor in a flight attendant’s breast cancer, alongside passive smoking and years of night work. The landmark ruling could open the door to similar claims from other aircrew, as research continues to link long-term high-altitude flying with elevated exposure to radiation-related cancers. The BBC reports: Sophie Lainault, a 59 year-old former stewardess on Air France, sought to have her cancer recognized as an occupational disease, brought on by conditions at work. This has now been confirmed in a landmark court ruling in the southwestern town of Bayonne, which said that cosmic radiation was one of three carcinogenic hazards arising from her profession. […] As stewardess and later purser on Air France airliners, Lainault clocked up 12,600 flight hours between 1989 and 2019. More than half of these were at night. Many long-distance high-altitude flights from Paris would have taken her near the North Pole, where exposure to radiation from space — strictly speaking particles from the sun and other stars — is the most intense.
A study this month at the Harvard Medical School in the US found that flight attendants and pilots had the highest level of radiation-related cancer deaths among more than 500 different professions. In all, about 6.9% of deaths among flight attendants and 6.7% of deaths among pilots were from radiation-related cancers, according to the analysis. These proportions were higher than for other professions including nuclear technologists, who are routinely exposed to radiation from non-cosmic sources yet placed 12th on the list, the authors said. “In France the link between breast cancer and certain hazards has been established for a number of professions, such as nurses … but this is the first time for an air-hostess,” said Lainault’s lawyer Elisabeth Leroux.
Google Home users recently began reporting issues adding items to their Keep lists.
Google has now responded to those reports, although confusingly references “UI issues.”
The company’s fix is expected to hit devices within the next few days.
You try so hard to be an organized adult: planning ahead, making lists, and keeping track that you get done what you need to. While we have plenty of great tools at our disposal for helping out with that kind of thing, they don’t always work how they’re meant to, and earlier this week we shared with you that Google Home devices were seemingly losing the ability to add new items to Google Keep lists. While that was quite frustrating, it sounds like Google is nearly ready to deploy a fix… kind of?
Let’s back up a second, first. Historically, Google Assistant was happy to let you modify lists to your heart’s content, but back in 2023 Google locked that down to restrict third-party apps. Critically, though, lists in Keep were supposed to stay right on working. And while that’s been the case for a while now, users recently started complaining that Gemini on Google Home devices seems completely unable to meaningfully add to their Keep lists.
A little earlier this afternoon, a Google spokesperson popped up in one of those threads to share a response:
There is no change to Google Keep support on Google Home devices. We are rolling out a fix for some UI issues and should reach all users within the next few days.
Presumably, that means “no intended change,” and that Google isn’t knowingly removing any Keep functionality from your voice assistant. Still, the message is a little murkier than we’d like — is Google referring to the functional problem we heard about with adding items to lists as a “UI issue?”
Like we said: The wording here is a bit funny, especially considering the behavior that’s been reported. But even if we can’t quite square that up 100%, the “fix in a few days” language feels pretty unambiguous. Hopefully we’ll soon be able to confirm that this is, indeed the fix we hope it is — and go back to adding item after item to our Keep lists.
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Hearing loss affects an estimated 50 million adults in the United States, but only around 20% of those with diagnosed hearing loss seek treatment. Legato, a new hearing tech company, aims to close that gap.
The startup is emerging from stealth on Wednesday with $12 million in funding and a first look at its AI hearing glasses, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The glasses, called Legato Frames, integrate the company’s patented hearing-assistance technology into the arms of eyewear frames. Legato Frames are expected to launch later this fall.
Legato was founded by Mehul Trivedi and Steve Romine, who bring extensive experience in wearables and hearing care from Bose, where Trivedi led the creation of Bose Frames and Romine ran the hearing aids division. Trivedi left Bose to work at EssilorLuxottica, where he led smart eyewear efforts and worked on the Meta Ray-Bans, while Romine went on to serve as COO of hearing care company Audicus.
After spending years at larger companies, Trivedi took some time off to explore the intersection of hearing technology and smart eyewear. During that time, Trivedi came across technology he believed could bring the two together, so he contacted Romine and the pair founded Legato in late 2024.
Image Credits:Legato /
“Our goal is to make hearing as ubiquitous as vision,” Trivedi said in an interview with TechCrunch. “It’s kind of a no-brainer that you go to an eye exam, you get your glasses, you wear your glasses, and you’re happy, and you do that for the rest of your life — and the idea of it being blurry again where you would just stop wearing them is not a consideration. I think that’s what we want to do with hearing: just make it something that people address and almost forget about.”
Legato is targeting people with mild to moderate hearing loss, which represents the largest segment of the hearing-loss population, the startup says.
The company started with the goal of making hearing care more accessible by addressing the cost, comfort, and stigma associated with traditional hearing aids. Legato set out to make the glasses as small and lightweight as possible, and developed a proprietary acoustic system, signal-processing stack, and mechanical architecture to achieve it.
Legato co-founders Mehul Trivedi (left) and Steve Romine (right)Image Credits:Legato /
Traditional hearing aids often use directional microphones to focus on sounds coming from a particular direction, which works well in quiet settings but can be difficult in noisy environments, such as restaurants. Legato takes a different approach by using an AI-powered system to differentiate between background noise and voices, amplifying only the voices.
The goal is to make conversations clearer without creating the cognitively draining listening experience that can come with some traditional hearing aids.
“We wanted to deliver an experience that was unique,” Trivedi said. “So a form factor that’s really discreet and looks normal. They’re meant to feel and look like regular glasses. And so, we want it to be a product that’s effortless, easy to use, with kind of no controls that you need to fiddle with, works everywhere, works throughout your day, doesn’t need a ton of configuration, and just delivers you better hearing.”
While the frames have an open-ear design, sound isn’t broadcast to people around you. They feature a dual-speaker system that directs sound toward the wearer while canceling sound that escapes, reducing sound by 99% just a few inches away from the ear.
Image Credits:Legato /
The company’s funding, which is from Neotribe Ventures, Listen, and Village Global, has largely gone toward product development, along with marketing efforts.
“We have an opportunity to address a population with this product and build something that delivers without all the compromises of traditional hearing aids,” Trivedi said. “Hearing, at first glance, it’s not so much just like ‘I want to hear the TV better.’ It’s really about connection. When you hear better, you connect to the world. It reduces dementia risk and depression risk,” he continued.
“There’s impactful hearing health factors associated with better hearing. We’ve got a product that lives on people for 16 hours that is trusted to help them with their hearing and their vision, and we’d love to continue helping them in every way we can.”
When the frames launch later this year, Legato says they’ll be available through select eye-care providers nationwide and will “cost a fraction” of traditional hearing aids and may be eligible for vision insurance when purchased through an eye-care clinic.
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Today’s Wordle answer should be easy to solve if you have a farm.
If you just want to be told today’s word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for today’s Wordle solution revealed. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once.
The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.
Get your last guesses in now, because it’s your final chance to solve today’s Wordle before we reveal the solution.
Drumroll please!
The solution to today’s Wordle is…
CAPON
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Reporting by Chance Townsend, Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.
“This would create a parallel federal eligibility infrastructure on top of existing state voter rolls,” Issue One, a nonprofit seeking to reduce the role of money in politics, wrote shortly after the order was issued.
The second provision targets election officials by demanding that the US attorney general “prioritize the investigation and, as appropriate, the prosecution of State and local officials … who issue Federal ballots to individuals not eligible to vote in a Federal election.”
The final provision in the order directs the USPS to create new rules for absentee and mail-in ballots. Under the rules, states would need to provide the USPS with a list of voters they intend to send ballots to. The order prevents the USPS from sending ballots to anyone not on the list. This rule would require the printing of millions of new ballot envelopes with trackable barcodes.
Last week, before the Supreme Court ruling was issued, the USPS issued a 95-page final rule explaining how it plans to enforce Trump’s proposed changes to mail-in voting in order to “reduce the risk of fraud, and help protect the integrity of federal elections.” The rule compares mail-in ballots to fake bombs or cremated animal remains. The New York Times reported on Monday that Trump is seeking to take control over the USPS board by stacking it with members who have questioned the outcome of the 2020 election.
The provisions of the executive order were mostly blocked by federal courts before the Trump administration appealed the rulings to the Supreme Court in July. Earlier this month, the administration pushed the court to issue a ruling quickly, claiming that failing to do so would cause “irreparable harm to the federal government, the public, and election integrity.”
While the states are likely to file another lawsuit once the USPS rule goes into effect on Wednesday, the Supreme Court decision will still likely cause disruption, given how close the general election is.
“The Court seemed to create complete chaos leading up to the midterm elections, waiting weeks after an administration filing, and just days before mail ballots go out, to completely rewrite the rules of the election,” David Becker, the head of the Center for Election Innovation and Research and a former Justice Department lawyer, wrote in an emailed statement.
That chaos will hit election officials the hardest.
“From a strictly practical perspective, there simply is just not enough time to implement the proposed requirements for the 2026 general election,” Stuart Holmes, director of elections in Washington state, tells WIRED.
Holmes said that county election offices already have ballot packet mailing materials printed and ready to mail, and that destroying and reprinting them is not realistic, financially or otherwise. The USPS rules would also require new envelope designs, which would in turn need to be reviewed and approved by the USPS to ensure compliance with their automation equipment.
“Even if new designs could be developed and approved in time, it is unrealistic to expect the limited number of printing vendors serving Washington’s counties to produce entirely new supplies of ballot envelopes for every county before the general election without significant disruption,” Holmes adds.
Finally, Holmes flagged that the demands of maintaining the USPS lists required under the order would be virtually impossible. “Voter registration data does not remain static. Voters continually update their registrations, ineligible voters are removed from the rolls, and newly eligible voters are added,” he says. “Meeting the proposed reporting requirements would require the Office of the Secretary of State to dedicate staff to provide updated information to USPS while those same staff are already responsible for other essential list maintenance and election preparation activities.”
