July 2026

iOS & Apple news

iOS 26.5 and 26.5.2 have been released in May and end of June, respectively.

Apple Released iOS 26.5.2 Security Fixes Early to Thwart AI-Assisted Hacks. `Apple told Reuters on Monday it was adapting to the reality that, given the ability of artificial intelligence `to speed the development of malicious hacking tools, it needed to reduce the time between when updates were first made public and when they were put into customers' hands.'

Recall that iOS 26.5 has End-to-End Encryption for RCS. RCS requires support from individual carriers and those Android users who have the latest version of Google Messages.

Apple announced End-to-end encrypted RCS messaging, with iOS 26.5.

Joanna Stern talks about the iOS 27 public beta and recommends it as low risk.

Joanna Stern Apple’s Siri demos into the real world. This is the Siri we expect will come with iOS 27. Joanna spent a week using Siri for a road trip to the beach, shopping, meals, medical questions, personal advice—and yes, trying to make Siri her girlfriend. What makes the new Siri different is that it can understand a surprising amount of personal information from your iPhone. Joanna breaks down how Apple’s new AI works, what data stays private and whether we have ultimate trust in Apple.

Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets, reports 9to5mac.

Here is an overview from 9to5Mac:

John Gruber writes about the lawsuit.

OpenAI has responded to Apple's lawsuit July 10.

Roger H. told us about going to Macstock X and David Pogue at the conference.

Apple called it the Pogue feature. You use it every single day and never knew why it existed — until now. 17 years later, David Pogue finally told me the story:

Here is the full episode, David Pogue interviewed by Techish reporter Jennifer Jolly. Description: "In this week’s episode, I sit down with David Pogue. THE David Pogue. He's the guy who tells the most important consumer tech stories on the planet, in a way that makes you forget it’s about buttons and features, and reminds you it’s about real life. David's been covering Apple for longer than I have — about 35 years. He was the tech columnist at the New York Times for 13 years, a seven-time Emmy winner on CBS Sunday Morning. This is such a great conversation." The video is 44 mins:

Here is the portion where Pogue discusses how apple's AI strategy is different (about 4 mins):

Roger H. told us about his trip to

iPhones ranked first, second, third and sixth most popular phones during the first quarter.

[ RUMOR ] Two New Apple Pencils Reportedly Launching Next Year.

iOS apps

Akinator is a website and an iOS game. You think of a person, fictional or real, and the genie tries to guess your character by asking you a series of Yes or No questions. It's a fun game if you want to stump the genie.

Argentum Camera is a very nice black-and-white camera app for your iPhone. `Inspired by the classical film cameras from the 70s and 80s, Argentum’s interface is simple, but functional, a balance between the modern sleekness and the classical forms.'

DayOne app introduces Daily Chat, a conversational journaling experience that helps you capture and reflect on your day through a simple back-and-forth chat. Your conversation becomes a journal entry that preserves your words, your mood, and the moments that matter most.

gadgets & accessories

Scrypted Scrypted is an open source video integration platform. Using various Plugins, Scrypted can receive streams from a range of cameras and send them to other platforms (HomeKit, Google Home, Alexa, Home Assistant).

Shane Whatley discusses Srypted: `HomeKit Secure Video is getting a lot more useful with new Apple Home camera features coming in iOS 27 — but that only matters if your cameras actually work with Apple Home. In this video, I’m setting up Scrypted to bring my existing security cameras into Apple Home without replacing them. I’ll show how I installed Scrypted on a UGREEN NAS using Docker, how it can bridge cameras like UniFi into Apple Home, and I’ll also quickly cover the Home Assistant install option for those already using HA.`

watch

Apple watch can detect many health patterns including potential high blood pressure. It does not measure the user's blood pressure. Apple Watch's optical heart sensor uses photoplethysmography (PPG) — measuring blood volume changes through the skin to analyze how blood vessels respond to each heartbeat. The feature works passively in the background: a deep learning algorithm takes 60-second PPG segments as input, collected roughly every two hours, filtered against accelerometer data to confirm the wearer is sitting still (a requirement for the algorithm to run).

Here is Hypertension Notification Feature on Apple Watch, written by Apple. `The feature works passively in the background during waking hours, analyzing data over discrete 30-day intervals to detect signs of hypertension. It does not require calibration, it does not measure blood pressure directly, and does not surface a blood pressure reading to users. Instead, the Hypertension Notification Feature notifies users if optical heart sensor data shows signs of hypertension after 30 days.'

Here is Empirical Health's technical explainer, written by someone who worked on early Apple Watch BP-detection studies, providing an overview of the algorithm.

AI

Anthropic Introduces a way to reflect on how you use Claude.

Olga noted that she uses Claude and enjoys it. However, all AI, including Claude often makes mistakes. The mistakes are often not just wrong but easily verifiable to be completely wrong. If you push back and say that's not right, AI chatbots often respond by agreeing, saying `good catch', etc. Olga recommends asking for references you can check yourself.

I fell for an AI email scam, writes Joanna Stern. This is worth reading.

Malwarebytes Scam Guard is your on-demand scam detector, offering real-time verification and simple tips so you always know what’s real.

Meta Sets Default For Instagram Accounts To Permit Content Reuse By AI, reports John Gruber.

general apps & services

Recall that iFixIt.com a offers repair guides for many household appliances, including Apple devices, but much much more. It's searchable and free.

next iPUG

The next iPUG meeting will be on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, at 7 pm AZ Time and PT.