Business
(VIDEO) South Side Priest Delivers Personalized White Sox Pope Hat to Pope Leo XIV During Vatican Meeting
CHICAGO — Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pontiff and a lifelong Chicago White Sox fan, has his own personalized version of the team’s viral “pope hat” giveaway after a South Side priest delivered the gift to him at the Vatican this week.
The Rev. Tom McCarthy, prior provincial of the Beverly-based Midwest Augustinians, met with the pope Wednesday and presented him with a gift box from the White Sox. The package included an upgraded version of the hat, featuring a sewn-on patch with the team’s logo, along with several of the original giveaway hats, a team jersey, a signed baseball card and a letter from White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, according to Block Club Chicago.
The White Sox posted a photo of McCarthy and the pope holding the hat together on the social media platform X on Thursday, writing that the item had “officially landed at the Vatican.” The image quickly circulated online, drawing hundreds of thousands of views.
The hat traces back to a sold-out White Sox game on Aug. 11 against the Cincinnati Reds, when the team distributed roughly 40,000 of the black-and-gold hats to fans at Rate Field as part of a promotion celebrating the team’s connection to the pope. The design draws on the ceremonial miter worn by Catholic bishops, cardinals and the pope himself, reimagined with the White Sox’s white stocking logo. According to the team, the giveaway was originally planned as a limited-quantity item before it was expanded to include all fans following what the club described as overwhelming demand.
McCarthy attended that August game to accept a 14,000 dollar donation from White Sox charities on behalf of the Midwest Augustinian Province, the Catholic religious order Pope Leo, born Robert Francis Prevost, belonged to during his years in Chicago. McCarthy currently holds the same prior provincial position the pope once held within the order in the 1990s.
Speaking to Block Club Chicago about his meeting with the pope, McCarthy said Leo was pleased with the gifts and had one lighthearted regret about the timing. “He did say, ‘Too bad we didn’t win the game,’” McCarthy recalled. The White Sox lost that Aug. 11 contest 5-4 to the Reds, though the team has remained atop the American League Central Division for much of the season. As of this week’s announcement from the club, the White Sox held a two-and-a-half-game lead over the Cleveland Guardians in the division standings.
McCarthy, who grew up in the Marquette Park neighborhood, told Block Club Chicago that Pope Leo follows the White Sox from Vatican City, though he said he was unsure how closely the pope is able to track games given the seven-hour time difference between Chicago and Rome. During their meeting, McCarthy also recounted other moments from the Aug. 11 game, including a ceremonial first pitch from a former Marian Catholic High School teacher and a stadium-wide performance of the Catholic “Sign of Peace” ritual during the fifth inning, in which fans greeted and shook hands with those seated around them.
McCarthy described that moment as a powerful show of unity that transcended religious background. He also connected the enthusiasm around the pope’s fandom to a broader trend he said he has observed within the church, telling Block Club Chicago that some parishes have reported increased interest from both new converts and lapsed Catholics returning to the faith since Leo’s election.
Pope Leo, who was born in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood and raised in the south suburb of Dolton, has spoken publicly about the connection between sports and community-building since becoming pope in May 2025. He attended Game 1 of the 2005 World Series, when the White Sox swept the Houston Astros for the franchise’s first championship since 1917, and has continued to express support for the team throughout his papacy, including wearing a White Sox cap during a Vatican general audience last year.
Illinois Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who has met with the pope and discussed his fandom, has separately described Leo’s enthusiasm for the team as striking given the pontiff’s formal surroundings. According to comments reported by the Catholic Herald, Krishnamoorthi recounted the pope greeting him with a remark about the team’s loss on what had been designated Pope Leo Day at the ballpark, saying he was struck that the pontiff was “following the White Sox so religiously.”
McCarthy said he raised the possibility of Pope Leo eventually visiting Chicago, drawing a comparison to Pope John Paul II’s 1979 visit to the city, and said he came away from the conversation believing a return trip is likely at some point, even without a firm timetable. Demand for the original White Sox pope hat giveaway item has also picked up on the secondary market, with listings on eBay this week ranging from roughly 67 dollars to more than 200 dollars.
Business
Yelp Stock Climbs 3 Percent as AI Partnerships With OpenAI Help Offset Local Advertising Weakness
Shares of Yelp Inc. rose more than 3% Friday, continuing a choppy but closely watched stretch for the local-review platform as investors weigh the company’s push into artificial intelligence licensing deals against persistent weakness in its core advertising business.
Yelp stock traded at 23.19 dollars, up 0.68 dollars, or 3.02%, as of 12:34 p.m. Eastern time on the New York Stock Exchange. The gain comes amid a volatile month for the stock, which has fallen roughly 11.7% over the past month and about 28.5% over the past year, according to trading data, even as the company has pointed to its expanding artificial intelligence initiatives as a source of long-term growth.
Much of the recent attention on Yelp has centered on the company’s data-licensing partnership with OpenAI, announced in late July. Under the agreement, OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot can surface Yelp’s reviews, ratings, photos and business details when responding to local search queries, with Yelp’s branding and links appearing alongside that content. The deal also includes plans to integrate Yelp’s “Request a Quote” feature, allowing ChatGPT users to contact local service providers directly through the chatbot without leaving the interface. Yelp and OpenAI did not disclose the financial terms of the arrangement, which is non-exclusive, leaving Yelp free to pursue similar deals with other artificial intelligence companies.
Yelp Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Stoppelman, who co-founded the company in 2004, has framed the OpenAI partnership as validation of the value of Yelp’s decades of user-generated review data at a moment when consumers are increasingly turning to AI chatbots instead of traditional search engines. “If you want to answer local queries, you really need Yelp,” Stoppelman told Axios when the deal was announced. He added that distributing Yelp’s content beyond its own platform can still benefit the company directly, saying, “Ultimately, we believe that if we allow our content outside the walls of just Yelp, and we provide it in useful ways to consumers … value does accrue back to Yelp.”
The OpenAI deal followed Yelp’s existing data-licensing relationships with companies including Apple Maps and Amazon’s Alexa, and it has become a central talking point in the company’s broader narrative about adapting to an AI-driven search landscape. On Yelp’s second-quarter earnings call earlier this month, Stoppelman described the ChatGPT integration as still in its early stages. “It’s still kind of the first inning, but you can see ratings, it links back to Yelp. You can see review snippets, and those also can link back to Yelp,” he told analysts, adding that the company had also begun rolling out its Request-a-Quote feature within the chatbot.
Yelp’s second-quarter results, reported Aug. 6, showed the tension between the company’s AI ambitions and ongoing pressure on its core advertising business. Net revenue rose about 1.4% year-over-year to 375.5 million dollars, exceeding the high end of the company’s own guidance range by 8 million dollars. Earnings per share came in at 57 cents, sharply above analyst expectations and a 56% earnings surprise, according to trading data compiled by market trackers. However, net income declined 28% from a year earlier to roughly 32 million dollars, as the company increased spending on product development and its AI initiatives.
The company’s advertising business, historically its primary revenue driver, showed mixed trends. Services advertising revenue, which covers categories such as home repair and professional services, was flat year-over-year at 241 million dollars, while restaurant, retail and other advertising revenue declined 10% to 102 million dollars. Yelp’s newer, AI-oriented revenue streams grew far more quickly by comparison: the company’s “other revenue” category, which includes data licensing, nearly doubled year-over-year to a record 33 million dollars in the quarter.
“At the same time, our trusted content is powering local discovery for ChatGPT and other AI partners,” Stoppelman said in the company’s earnings statement. “While headwinds for local businesses persist, I’m confident we are building a stronger Yelp, transformed with AI, that is well-positioned to drive long-term profitable growth.”
Yelp Chief Financial Officer David Schwarzbach highlighted the same trend in the earnings release, noting that the quarter’s revenue outperformance was driven in part by that acceleration. “In the second quarter, Yelp delivered net revenue of 376 million dollars, 8 million dollars above the high end of our outlook range. Other revenue accelerated from the first quarter, increasing 98% year over year to a record 33 million dollars,” Schwarzbach said.
Looking ahead, Yelp narrowed its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to a range of 1.46 billion dollars to 1.47 billion dollars and projected third-quarter revenue of 365 million dollars to 370 million dollars. The company also said it has paused its share repurchase program to prioritize paying down its revolving credit facility, with plans to resume buybacks in 2027. Yelp had roughly 339 million dollars remaining under its existing repurchase authorization as of the most recent quarter.
Wall Street’s reaction to Yelp’s recent results and AI strategy has been mixed. Several analysts have lowered their price targets on the stock in recent weeks even while maintaining favorable ratings, citing softer 2026 guidance, macroeconomic pressure on advertising budgets, and execution risk tied to the company’s newer revenue initiatives. Baird lowered its price target on Yelp to 27 dollars from 28 dollars earlier this month, while other firms, including Craig-Hallum, have maintained buy ratings on the stock.
Business
(VIDEO) Caitlin Clark Debuts Taylor Swift Friendship Bracelet Nike Caitlin 1s After Fever Practice Reveal
INDIANAPOLIS — Caitlin Clark showed up to Indiana Fever practice this week in a new colorway of her signature Nike shoe, a blush-and-bead design that immediately read as a nod to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour friendship-bracelet tradition.
The pair, widely identified as the Nike Caitlin 1 “Friendship Bracelet,” features fuzzy, chunky laces threaded with small charm-like beads. Clark’s initials, “CC,” appear on a lace of the left shoe. Her jersey number, 22, is spelled out in block beads on the right — a number that also matches the title of a Swift song. Clark’s logo sits in royal blue on the tongue. The upper mixes soft pink, off-white, metallic and iridescent tones.
Clark posted the shoes on her Instagram Stories with a short caption: “Yeah these are the ones.”
The Indiana Fever account and sneaker outlets circulated closer looks the same day. Clark wore the colorway at practice Wednesday. She has not yet been reported wearing the pair in a regular-season game.
The reveal was not a complete surprise. In June, Clark arrived for a home game against the Toronto Tempo with eight blue bracelets stacked on her left wrist. The beads read “10.01.26” and “Caitlin 1,” a hint at both her signature line and an October retail date tied to the first public colorway.
Nike’s first widely listed Caitlin 1, the Racer Blue edition, has been advertised for pre-order around $140, with a public release expected Oct. 1. Sneaker sites tracking the Friendship Bracelet version have separately pointed to a later window, around Feb. 24, 2027, and a retail price near $150. Nike has not issued a full campaign framing the bead colorway as an official Swift collaboration.
The design language is still unmistakable to anyone who stood in an Eras Tour line. Fans spent years trading handmade bracelets outside stadiums, a ritual often tied to the lyric “So make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it” from Swift’s song “You’re On Your Own, Kid.” Clark moved that idea from wrists to laces.
She has been open about the fandom. After wearing a player-exclusive Nike Kobe 6 inspired by the Eras Tour earlier this season, she told reporters, “I’m a big fan of Taylor [Swift] and the Eras Tour was the best concert of all time, so that was the thought behind these and I think they’re pretty fun.” She also said she wore friendship bracelets on her socks that night.
This month she went further on the idea of Swift wearing her own shoe. “Well, Travis Scott tried on the all-black pair. Obviously, we saw that in my Instagram post. I wouldn’t mind seeing Taylor Swift in a couple versions that I think she would probably like.”
The two have crossed paths in public. They have been photographed together at Kansas City Chiefs games, including a 2025 AFC divisional round against Houston and a later regular-season meeting with Detroit, sitting in a suite as Swift watched Travis Kelce. Reporting around their acquaintance has also described Swift sending Clark Eras Tour merchandise and a note calling her inspiring to watch from afar.
That crossover is part of why the shoe landed so quickly. Clark is the face of a WNBA surge. Swift remains one of the most visible entertainers in the world. A performance basketball sneaker that looks like concert merch sits at the intersection of both audiences.
The Caitlin 1 itself is new. Clark’s first signature Nike model arrived this season after years in other silhouettes. Early colorways have included Iowa Hawkeyes yellow and black, All-Star looks and the forthcoming Racer Blue retail pair. The Friendship Bracelet edition is the most narrative-driven of the bunch: not just a team or school palette, but a specific cultural object from another industry.
Construction details reported by footwear outlets include an OptiCast upper with shifting pastel and pearl tones, metallic swooshes, graphic insoles printed with beads and Clark’s double-C mark, and extra charms in some sample descriptions so buyers can restyle the laces. The midsole stays relatively low, consistent with the performance brief of the Caitlin 1 rather than a fashion-only last.
For Nike, the timing is useful. Clark’s shoe line is still in its first retail cycle. A colorway that can travel beyond basketball shops — into Swift fan communities, social feeds and gift lists — expands the addressable market without requiring a co-branded contract that neither side has announced.
For the Fever, it is another piece of off-court attention during a season already defined by Clark’s drawing power. Practice photos and an Instagram story were enough to push the shoes across sports and entertainment coverage within a day.
There are limits to what the debut actually confirms. A practice wear-test is not a launch event. A caption is not a release date. Conflicting listings for $140 in October versus $150 next February mean shoppers should treat the Friendship Bracelet pair as upcoming, not as the shoe currently in the main Nike pre-order slot unless the company updates that page.
Still, the product logic is clear. Clark has spent two years making her Swift fandom visible: tour-inspired player exclusives, bracelets on game days, suite appearances, and now beads on her own signature model. Swift’s world already knows how to turn small objects into communal tokens. Putting those tokens on a basketball shoe is a simple translation.
Whether Swift ever wears a pair is an open question Clark has already answered in public: she would not mind. Until then, the shoes exist as a practice-court preview and a merchandising teaser — fuzzy laces, “CC” and “22,” blush tones, and a caption that told fans she had found the version she wanted.
When the colorway does reach shelves, demand will likely split between basketball buyers chasing the Caitlin 1 and fans who simply want a wearable piece of the bracelet era. That dual audience is the point of the design. Clark did not put Swift’s name on the box. She put the ritual on the laces and let people recognize it.
Business
Fed’s Warsh delivers first Jackson Hole keynote amid economic uncertainty
FOX Business White House correspondent Edward Lawrence reports on Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh’s speech at Jackson Hole, Wy., on ‘Varney & Co.’
Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh on Friday delivered his first keynote at the annual monetary policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, against a backdrop of uncertainty over inflation, as well as how he will guide policymakers as they consider interest rate moves.
Warsh’s speech comes as the Federal Reserve has held interest rates steady at each of its five meetings so far this year amid persistent inflation, which moved further away from the central bank’s 2% target amid the Iran war.
The annual Jackson Hole conference, which features central bank leaders from around the world, is historically an opportunity for the Fed chair to reset expectations about monetary policy and give their perspective on how economic conditions are developing over the near- and long-term.
Warsh is opposed to giving so-called forward guidance about how policymakers will approach upcoming monetary policy moves, and has taken steps to remove such language from the Fed’s post-meeting statements. That has left some Fed watchers hoping for a clearer view into how Warsh evaluates incoming data and views the economy’s path ahead.
The Fed chair offered an overview of his speech – joking that it could be called an outline or trail map, but not forward guidance – and said he plans to discuss the practice of forward guidance and how markets and the central bank interact. He also said he would address the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the economy, as well as key principles for monetary policy and his current view of the economy.
FED CHAIR WARSH FACES JACKSON HOLE SPOTLIGHT WITH INFLATION, RATE PATH IN FOCUS

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has expressed misgivings over the central bank’s use of forward guidance. (Li Yuanqing/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“With the unchanging picture of the Tetons as our backdrop, we are here to survey an economic landscape that is anything but static,” Warsh said, saying that the world is at a hinge point in history.
He said that progress in AI has been faster than anticipated and that the “potential for substantially higher growth is on the rise. Ever-expanding pools of capital pouring into AI-related infrastructure of all sorts. A kind of super Moore’s law seems to be playing out.”
Warsh noted the Fed created an AI task force that will track things like the impact of AI on productivity, jobs and employment, how the industry is developing and how returns are accruing across the labs, chipmakers, energy producers and cloud providers driving it.
FED DISSENTERS WARN INFLATION COULD BECOME ENTRENCHED WITHOUT MONETARY POLICY TIGHTENING NOW
On forward guidance, the Fed chair acknowledged his “long-time discomfort with early pronouncements of future policy decisions,” and offered his own view that “transparency and communications about future policy decisions is not an end unto itself.”
“Forward guidance as a regular practice was adopted by my colleagues and me during the global financial crisis. It was essential at the time, and we introduced it with much fanfare. But as with other legacies of crises past, I believe the practice has outstayed its welcome,” he explained.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said the Fed should be “humble and never naive.” (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Warsh said that in ordinary times, forward guidance should be “limited and circumscribed” because otherwise, it would risk “creating ambiguity in the name of clarity over sharing policy deliberations and committing to future decisions that can lead markets, businesses and households astray.”
“In my view, the Fed should be humble and never naive. The Fed plays an essential role in the economy and markets. Our tools are powerful. We determine the path of short-term interest rates, and market participants will always try to anticipate what we will do next. But we should not indulge a regime in which market participants are looking primarily to the Fed for their next trade,” Warsh explained.
“If the Fed gets inflation wrong and judges the economy wrong, who gets the worst of it? Not the financial high-fliers. Hardworking Americans are the ones left to deal with inflation that’s too high, or jobs that suddenly appear less secure,” he added.
FED’S FAVORED INFLATION GAUGE ROSE MORE THAN EXPECTED IN JULY
Warsh discussed his principles for monetary policy, including that the data the Fed relies on must be “relevant, contemporaneous, accurate and as actionable as possible.” He continued to say that the Fed’s actions are aimed at ensuring the aggregate demand side of the economy is broadly consistent with aggregate supply, though it’s an imprecise balance.
“There should be no misunderstanding. The Fed’s price stability objective of 2%, as measured by the PCE price index, is a firm, fixed target. Let me be equally clear about another aspect of this. Subjective price stability is not self-executing, nor is inflation necessarily mean reverting. It is the Fed’s job to deliver stable prices, no excuses,” Warsh said.
He added that the Fed also bears responsibility for maximum employment, the second component of the central bank’s dual mandate, and said that he doesn’t believe that the “Fed’s dual mandate works across purposes. After all, high inflation itself is very harmful to economic prosperity.”
Other principles Warsh discussed were that short-term interest rates are the predominant tool for achieving the dual mandate, while noting that “unconventional policies to spur economic activity may suit genuine crises of which we all have much experience, but they should otherwise be used sparingly, if at all.”
The central bank’s impact on the supply of money should also receive closer attention for their impact on financial conditions and prices. He also said that a “quieter Fed, a more purposeful Fed in its communications is better able to meet its objectives, and we can be held accountable for delivering on our remit, the only true test of our credibility.”
Warsh also offered an outlook for the economy, noting that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) view of the economy in July was that “labor markets were stable, output solid, but inflation remained too high,” which led the Fed to hold rates steady and remain at the ready to act as circumstances require.
“For my part, as we sit here, I’m impressed by the overall performance of the economy, which appears to have strengthened,” Warsh said while noting that both Main Street and Wall Street have shown resiliency in the face of economic shocks.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh expressed concern about elevated inflation in his first keynote speech at the annual Jackson Hole conference. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
FED CHAIR KEVIN WARSH SAYS CENTRAL BANK HAS ‘NO TOLERANCE’ FOR ELEVATED INFLATION
He said that firms in the S&P 500 Index have seen profits grow over 20% in the past year, with profit margins “quite elevated” relative to history, with low volatility in the market. Warsh noted strain in certain sectors, including housing and agriculture, but added he “would be hard-pressed to describe broad financial conditions as restrictive.”
“Labor markets are quite stable. The jobless rate at 4.1% remains low by historical standards and hasn’t changed much in a couple of years,” Warsh said. “In my view, the relatively low turnover in today’s labor market is partly a result of the significant matching between employers and employees that happened in the post-pandemic environment.”
“But when labor supply is barely growing, monthly job gains are naturally going to run low. There are always areas of concern in the labor market, for example, among recent college graduates… But as of now, I believe the labor markets are broadly consistent with full employment,” he said.
“On the price stability side of our mandate, the numbers are more concerning,” Warsh said, noting that PCE inflation is at 3.7% year over year and that “inflation is running above our 2% target, so the Fed’s predominant focus right now should be on prices.”

Warsh was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as Fed chair in May 2026. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
While PCE and CPI inflation have “fallen significantly from their highs of a few years ago,” the progress in the last couple of years has been more modest and recent readings “do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved.”
Warsh said that the responsibility for “65 months of sustained, elevated inflation sits squarely with the central bank, and that’s where it belongs. So here is my standard: we must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective clearly and at sufficient speed, otherwise we have work to do.”
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The Fed chair concluded by saying that it’s a “tremendous honor to serve once again at the Federal Reserve,” and that he is “truly grateful for the encouragement, good counsel, and the warm reception I’ve received in my first 100 days from my colleagues.”
Business
Philippine Central Bank Raises Rates for Third Straight Meeting
The Philippine central bank raised interest rates for the third straight meeting, taking preemptive action against rising inflation risks from a severe El Nino event and possible wage increases.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas raised its benchmark overnight reverse repurchase rate to 5.00% from 4.75%, diverging from some regional peers including Bank Indonesia and Bank of Thailand, which left their rates unchanged.
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Business
Fastenal options activity surges on heavy put volume ahead of October expiry

Fastenal options activity surges on heavy put volume ahead of October expiry
Business
Cytokinetics, Incorporated (CYTK) Discusses Positive Phase III Results From ACACIA-HCM Trial of Aficamten in Nonobstructive HCM Transcript
Diane Weiser
Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs
Hello, everyone. I’m Diane Weiser, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs. I’m pleased to welcome everyone to our investor event to discuss the primary results from ACACIA-HCM, the pivotal Phase III clinical trial of aficamten in nonobstructive HCM. Today’s event is being hosted in a hybrid fashion. I’d like to welcome those here in the room with us in Munich as well as those joining online.
I’m pleased to introduce from Cytokinetics, Dr. Fady Malik, Steve Heitner and Robert Blum. And I’m also thrilled to welcome 3 leading experts in HCM for our panel discussions today, Dr. Martin Maron, Dr. Ahmad Masri and Dr. Christina Paitazoglou. Today’s agenda will begin with — is it on the slide? Today’s — we’re going to pause for a minute. Turning to today’s agenda. Fady Malik will provide some brief opening remarks. Next, Dr. Masri and Maron will provide an encore presentation of the ACACIA-HCM results that were presented earlier today in the hotline session at the Congress.
Then Steve will facilitate a panel discussion and Q&A session. And finally, Robert Blum will close us out providing some remarks. For those online, today’s slides are available for download in the webcast. You can submit questions to the panel at any point
Business
Oppenheimer raises Marvell stock price target on AI growth outlook

Oppenheimer raises Marvell stock price target on AI growth outlook
Business
ONEOK: This 4.5%-Yielding AI Energy Play Is Still Undervalued
ONEOK: This 4.5%-Yielding AI Energy Play Is Still Undervalued
Business
Dollar Steady With Fed’s Jackson Hole Meeting Set to Kick Off
The U.S. dollar was steady in early trade as investors await the Kansas City Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole meeting, starting Thursday.
Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh is due to speak Friday. Investors are waiting to see whether he provides a better understanding of what the central bank’s thinking on monetary policy is, although expectations are low in a new era where forward guidance has been dropped.
The DXY index, which measures the dollar’s value against a basket of currencies, is unchanged at 99.145.
Business
iPhone 17 Chip Rivals a Windows Gaming Laptop CPU and GPU, but the Price Tags Tell Different Stories
For years, comparing a phone chip to a laptop processor felt like an apples-to-oranges exercise. That gap has narrowed considerably with Apple’s latest generation of iPhones, and benchmark data on the standard iPhone 17 shows just how far the company’s custom silicon has come relative to hardware found in mainstream Windows laptops.
The iPhone 17, which Apple released in September alongside the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro models, runs on the company’s A19 chip. According to benchmark listings compiled from user-submitted results on the Geekbench Browser, the standard iPhone 17 recorded a single-core CPU score of roughly 3,608 and a multi-core score of about 8,810 on the Geekbench 6 test. Its graphics performance, measured using Geekbench’s Metal test for Apple hardware, came in at roughly 37,014, which the review site GSMArena reported was a 33% improvement over the previous year’s iPhone 16.
Those single-core numbers are notable because they land in the same range as, or in some cases exceed, single-core scores from many current Windows laptop processors, including some higher-end chips. Independent testing from Tom’s Hardware found that the A19 Pro, the more powerful chip used in the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, actually beat AMD’s desktop Ryzen 9 9950X processor in single-thread Geekbench 6 testing, while GSMArena separately reported the same chip outperforming Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite. The standard A19 chip in the base iPhone 17 trails its Pro sibling but still performs competitively against many laptop CPUs in single-core tasks.
Multi-core performance tells a different story, and this is where laptops still hold a clear advantage in most cases. Intel’s Core Ultra 9 185H, a high-end mobile processor found in many premium Windows laptops, posts Geekbench 6 multi-core scores in roughly the 12,000-to-17,000 range depending on the specific test and cooling setup, according to benchmark data from Notebookcheck and CPU-Monkey, well above the iPhone 17’s multi-core score of 8,810. That gap reflects a fundamental design difference: laptop chips like the Core Ultra 9 185H pack 16 cores and 22 threads built for sustained, heavier workloads, while Apple’s A19 favors a smaller number of highly efficient cores optimized for a phone’s power and thermal limits.
On the graphics side, a like-for-like comparison is harder to draw because Apple’s Metal benchmark and the OpenCL or Vulkan tests typically used to measure Windows laptop GPUs are different testing frameworks. Still, independent GPU benchmark trackers, including data compiled by PassMark’s video card benchmark database, place the iPhone 17’s graphics performance in a similar general tier to entry-level discrete laptop GPUs such as Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU, a chip commonly found in budget-to-midrange gaming laptops. The iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro, which use variants of the more powerful A19 Pro chip, score meaningfully higher, with Metal scores as high as 45,657 for the Pro Max, putting their graphics performance closer to what a laptop equipped with a low-to-midrange discrete GPU could achieve in short, less demanding workloads.
Memory is another area where the comparison is straightforward. The base iPhone 17 ships with 8 gigabytes of LPDDR5X RAM, while the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro models were bumped up to 12 gigabytes of faster LPDDR5X 8533 memory, according to specifications published by GSMArena. Mainstream Windows gaming laptops in the same performance tier as the iPhone 17 typically ship with 16 gigabytes of DDR5 memory as a baseline configuration, giving them roughly double the iPhone 17’s memory capacity, though phone and laptop memory architectures are not directly interchangeable in terms of how software uses them.
Translating those specifications into an actual laptop purchase, a machine with performance roughly comparable to the iPhone 17, pairing a mid-tier laptop CPU such as an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS or an Intel Core i7 with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU and 16 gigabytes of DDR5 memory, generally sells in the 900-dollar-to-1,100-dollar range at major retailers including Newegg and Best Buy, based on current listings. Budget configurations pairing similar GPUs with lower-tier processors can be found for a few hundred dollars less, while laptops that step up to a Core Ultra 9 185H or comparable high-end mobile chip, which would exceed the iPhone 17’s multi-core performance by a wide margin, tend to start closer to 1,300 dollars to 1,500 dollars depending on the rest of the configuration.
The comparison ultimately highlights a broader trend in mobile computing: Apple’s custom silicon has closed much of the single-core performance gap with laptop-class chips, largely because so much everyday computing, opening apps, browsing the web, running lightly threaded software, depends more on single-core speed than on raw multi-core throughput. Laptops still maintain a substantial edge in sustained, heavily multi-threaded workloads such as video encoding or large-scale data processing, along with far more flexible memory and storage configurations, but the days of dismissing a smartphone chip as fundamentally weaker than a laptop’s processor are increasingly behind us.
For consumers, the practical takeaway is that an iPhone 17 can handle many computing tasks, from responsive app performance to casual gaming, at a level that rivals a mainstream Windows laptop costing several hundred dollars more once the surrounding hardware is factored in, even as that laptop retains a clear advantage for demanding, multi-threaded professional workloads.
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