Eager to get on the Siri AI waitlist, I foolishly installed the iOS 27 beta on my one and only iPhone.
Now I have a glitchy iPhone that’s borderline unusable (it’s blocking calls!) — and I’m still on the bloody waitlist!
I’m going to have to pull a Mark Gurman and complain publicly about the wait. It worked for him: The Bloomberg editor got approved within minutes after posting on X!
I’m super-keen to try it out, especially after reading our top post today, where we re-created the Siri AI section of last week’s WWDC26 keynote.
Even though Apple’s demos of Siri AI looked convincingly real — including interminable delays — maybe Cupertino set things up to present Siri AI in the best light, we thought.
Cult of Mac writer D. Griffin Jones, who’s not on the waitlist and has been using Siri AI full-time all week, re-created all the demos. His experience has me reaching for X to bawl about lockout — if my buggy iPhone will let me, that is.
Also in today’s newsletter:
Amazon being Amazon, this amazing AirPods Pro 3 deal for just $169 keeps disappearing and reappearing. I found it under “Other sellers on Amazon,” at the right, but that too has disappeared for now. I dunno, maybe it’ll be live again if/when you check it out. Good luck!
🔥 DEAL OF THE DAY: This deal seems more stable: Get a folding travel charger from name-brand Mophie for just $39. It’s an older version, but it’s way, way cheaper than newer models. It only offers 15W charging but that’s not too slow ... and who cares when your iPhone’s charging overnight on a bedside table in a hotel? #affiliate
Our good friend and occasional contributor Graham Bower has updated his fab and free Reps & Sets weightlifting app with a bunch of new features, enabled mostly by some great new frameworks from Apple.
Wow. With this update to the Matter smart home standard, you can now pair a smart light bulb before even screwing it in!
If you ever cut and pasted some code into the Terminal app and it was blocked without explanation, here’s why — and it’s for a damn good reason.
Anyone use iPhone Mirroring on their Mac? I see people rave about it fairly frequently, but I’ve yet to find a good use for it myself. Three annoying limitations are getting removed in macOS 27, and one of them positively screams “folding iPhone.”
Don’t miss the top X post today, which highlights a charming Polaroid app that lives in the Dynamic Island. And it’s worth translating the second X post, too! See below.
Oh. Looks like no one shares my enthusiasm for camera AirPods, according to yesterday's poll.
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team
A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team
Cult of Mac’s buyback program
A message from Attio
Attio - the AI CRM for modern businesses.
Attio is the AI CRM that keeps you ten steps ahead.
Ask Attio anything. Where should I focus? What deals are at risk? Search, update, and create across your customer data.
Ask more from CRM. Ask Attio.
Tweets of the day
Wallpaper of the day
One more thing ...
We're really impressed with the telephone, because it was the first and really the only desk appliance.
To be a desk appliance, you have to do something really useful, and you have to be really easy to use, so people don't have to spend a lot of time learning how to use this thing, and you have to be really cheap.
And we don't think there's been a desk appliance since the telephone, and what we want to do is make Macintosh the second desk appliance.
Today’s poll
Do you use iPhone Mirroring on your Mac?
Results from yesterday’s poll:
Best reader comments
Subscribe to The Weekender — Get the week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.