Pretty much all of our personal data is online at this point. Whether it’s saved credit cards or photos in your social media profiles, your private life is easily accessible — including to hackers. 

That’s one reason why the vast majority of Americans have been targeted by scams or cyberattacks, according a new study by Consumer Reports, Aspen Digital and the Global Cyber Alliance.

The report found 9 in 10 Americans have faced at least one digital scam or cyberattack. “That’s not a statistic, that’s almost everyone we serve,” Consumer Reports CEO Phil Radford said in a statement. “AI is making fraud faster, cheaper and more personal, and no one can outsmart that alone. Companies need to be held accountable. Governments need real guardrails. That’s the bar we’re setting – for ourselves and for them.”

What’s even worse is that US adults aren’t confident in personal data privacy — like having safeguards for their Social Security number or financial data. Over 1 in 4 (29%) aren’t confident at all. That figure has nearly doubled compared to the annual survey’s 2025 finding that only 16% weren’t confident at all. And the number of US adults confident in the privacy of their sensitive data has shrunk from 48% in 2025 down to 32% this year. 

That doesn’t mean we’ve given up. Many respondents reported looking closely at texts and emails before clicking (69%), using multifactor authentication (60%) and enabling automatic software updates (48%). But their efforts alone won’t do. 

AI won’t make personal data privacy any easier to manage 

What will it take to increase consumer confidence in personal data privacy in a world where AI is becoming more of a threat than a tool for evolution? 

Consider the latest news of the FBI employees’ data being stolen, your home router being a target of Russian military intelligence and the widespread and fast-growing cybersecurity incidents from AI model testing and training. 

Read more: Florida Asks Judge to Stop OpenAI From Training New Models After Latest Incidents

“AI will certainly make it easier for scammers to create personalized scams at scale and lower the amount of effort it takes to craft and send scams,” said Stacey Higginbotham, a policy fellow for Consumer Reports. 

Higginbotham said there are several measures that can reduce scams, but policymakers haven’t taken serious action. Congress could pass laws such as the federal SCAM Act or the SAFE Platforms Act that would penalize scammers who abuse online platforms with their malicious tactics. 

“So AI is a problem, but legislators could address some of the challenges associated with the looming glut of AI-enabled scams by shoring up the basics and making it more expensive for companies to profit off of scammers at the expense of consumers,” Higginbotham said.

For now, Higginbotham said the most important thing you can do is follow common password best practices like using different strong passwords and enabling multifactor authentication. Also, make sure you’re assessing all messages from strangers, whether it feels like a scam or not.

Dashia Milden

Senior Consumer Insights Editor

Dashia is the consumer insights editor for CNET. She specializes in data-driven analysis and news at the intersection of tech, personal finance and consumer sentiment. Dashia investigates economic shifts and everyday challenges to help readers make well-informed decisions, and she covers a range of topics, including technology, security, energy and money. Dashia graduated from the University of South Carolina with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She loves baking, teaching spinning and spending time with her family.

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What is Overwatch Boosting? It’s a service where a higher-skilled player helps you progress toward a competitive goal, either by playing on your account or teaming up with you. The goal might be a target rank, a set number of wins, or help completing placements.

The right Overwatch boost format depends on whether you want hands-off progression, shared matches, or practical coaching. Understanding this difference is more useful than simply choosing the largest package.

What Is Overwatch Boosting?

Overwatch boosting connects players with experienced competitors who help advance an account through regular gameplay. In this service category, Eloboss connects Overwatch boosting with assistance from high-ranked players working toward a customer’s progression goals, including rank boosts, placement matches, wins, and other competitive objectives. Depending on the selected format, customers can either participate in matches through Self-Play or have the assigned player handle the gameplay on their account.

Boosts influence who plays with you in matches or who queues with you. They don’t actually affect the editing of your rank, giving out currency, or the matchmaking process.

In the case of a modern Overwatch game, both the queue and the role chosen become important. Role Queue consists of Tanks, Damage and Supports with their own ranks and improving the rank in one role doesn’t improve the ranks in other roles.

Older guides often describe progression through numerical Skill Rating, or SR. Current competitive progression uses visible ranks, divisions, and progress updates, so a service should define its target using the system shown in your game.

How the Overwatch Boosting Process Works

The majority of orders adhere to a simple flow, yet the specifics are to depend on your personal account and selected format.

1. Formulate the objective. Indicate your desired rank and division, placements, or wins.
2. Define the queue. Mention your current rank, role, platform, and region.
3. Define the mode of delivery. Define whether the booster plays in your place or is in-game with you.
4. Arrange the schedule and scope. Clarify your availability, preference for heroes, reporting on progress, and the finishing criterion.
5. Evaluate the outcome. Compare the appropriate role rank or the completed match with the set objective.

For instance, Gold 3 Support player who wishes to reach Platinum 5 must indicate Support Role Queue. The order to reach Platinum does not specify the role or the queue at all.

Account-Share vs Self-Play

The account-share boosting is the player assigned to you playing on your account to perform the necessary matches. You are not obliged to participate in all sessions, but your time spent must be scheduled not to clash.

The Self-Play, or also referred to as duo boosting, is where you play on your account and the booster plays on another account.

“Duo queue lets the customer retain control of the account while participating in the matches,” says Eloboss, a Overwatch boosting and coaching service.

Platform compatibility also matters. PC and console players use separate Competitive matchmaking pools, so cross-platform friendship alone doesn’t mean a competitive duo is possible.

What Determines Price and Completion Time?

Rank start, target division, chosen hero, delivery, and scheduling will affect the quote. Hero limitations and short deadlines could also affect the scope of work.

Timing depends on the length of the queue, match time, results, and how much rank is gained or lost by the account. The same number of matches does not guarantee a rank up for each individual account.

Ask whether an estimate refers to active playing hours or elapsed time. Four hours of matches spread across two evenings is different from completion within four hours of ordering.

Popular Overwatch Boosting Options

Select the package based on its completion criteria and not its name. Two packages may be quite alike in terms of what they do but measure different levels of accomplishment.

Rank Boosting

Rank boosting focuses on a particular rank and division within the chosen queue. This is ideal for those who have an end goal in mind, not the number of games played.

Determine if it involves achieving the target and playing after that or just the achievement of the target. These are two distinct goals.

Placement Matches

Placement assistance covers the matches needed when the game requires you to establish or recalibrate a rank. Placements aren’t necessarily required for every role at the start of every season.

It is not solely dependent upon the number of placements. The existing information on matchmaking can affect the outcome, which means that placements and reaching a specific rank are separate deliverables.

Wins and Net Wins

A win package is about match outcomes and not a particular division. Verify how many total wins or net wins your package requires.

Net wins mean wins minus losses. Having eight wins and three losses will yield five net wins, while a package for five total wins can end up in a losing streak.

Neither approach gives an exact measure of rank advancement.

Duo Queue and Coaching

Having a duo queue will offer you a veteran partner in the midst of your match. The coach will be directly helping to improve your decision-making process through the means of reviewing your plays or through demonstration.

There can be overlap between the two, but having an instruction is not included in all the duo orders. Make sure that your instruction is stated clearly if it is important for you, like Support placement, when to engage as a Tank, or Damage angles.

According to Eloboss, an Overwatch boosting and coaching service, duo boosting is a suitable option for players who want to stay involved in the process while also learning from a higher-ranked teammate. Playing together allows the customer to remain in control of the account while receiving practical guidance during the matches.

A useful learning request is specific: ask your teammate to identify one positioning mistake after each match. That gives you something actionable to practise without overwhelming live communication.

Competitive Points and Other Progression

Some providers offer help earning Competitive Points or completing other gameplay objectives. These packages should identify the exact currency, challenge, or progression track involved.

A higher rank doesn’t automatically unlock every weapon cosmetic. Check the item’s currency requirement and the current reward rules rather than assuming a rank boost includes it.

Why Players Choose Overwatch Boosting

Players normally come with an already existing scheduling issue or objective.

For example, a player with just two days available per week will require advancement even when he or she is not ready to spend both days on climbing the ladder by playing for a long time.

Others want assistance on a secondary role. A comfortable Damage player learning Tank may value help with engagement timing more than general aiming advice.

There can also be a social objective: moving closer to friends’ ranks. In that case, check current group eligibility first, because reaching a chosen division doesn’t remove every matchmaking restriction.

Key Benefits of Overwatch Boosting

However, the value is dependent upon the format of the service, not only the advertised rank level.

• Limited scope. There are concrete role, goal, or matching criteria to work towards.
• Flexible participation options. Account-share and Self-Play formats make room for various participation degrees.
• Increased coordination. The experienced partner helps with timing of engagement, choice of target, and calls for regrouping.
• Targeted feedback. In case of including the coaching element, the guidance will be based on your personal gameplay and heroes’ pool.

For example, a Support player will get a lesson on how to rotate before the enemy push instead of having to do that after losing the cover. It still is valuable after the session has ended.

Rank improvement and skill acquisition are two interconnected yet distinct results. In order to have both, consider including coaching or replay analysis into the scope of the service.

Final Thoughts

Boosting in Overwatch is goal-oriented support that can be provided via account sharing or duos. The most helpful way to go will always begin with setting your goal and selecting the appropriate queue, role, and platform.

Prior to organizing the sessions, define the criteria of success, the time of the matches, and whether coaching is required. These aspects will help find out if it is really what you need: ranked progress, a partner, or learnable skills.

For better or for worse, romance lovers have never been hornier for hockey. Now, the National Hockey League wants to cash in.

As part of its new “Hot for Hockey,” campaign, the NHL is rolling out romance novel-inspired short stories starring the league’s players on audiobook platforms. According to the Sports Business Journal, the league contacted popular hockey romance writers to write and narrate the 60 to 90 second stories, and will tap creators on BookTok, the romance-heavy literary subculture on TikTok, to promote the content.

The first batch of short stories, which dropped this week, feature players including the Philadelphia Flyers’ Trevor Zegras, the Carolina Hurricanes’ Sebastian Aho, and the Las Vegas Golden Knights’ Jack Eichel. They’re written by Pucking Wrong author C.R. Jane and more closely resemble back-cover summaries than actual romance novels. And, despite the nods to genre tropes, the players aren’t paired with romantic partners. Much more boringly, the stories appear to be a bid to get people to watch the actual games. The entirety of The Summer I Turned Gritty with Trevor Zegras is as follows:

“Trevor Zegras came to Philly looking for a fresh start. But after battling with Pittsburgh in the playoffs last year, he found out how gritty things could get. One heated summer later, Philly’s pretty boy is looking a whole lot grittier.”

Not all romance readers are thrilled about the campaign. Some argue that it makes players targets for sexual harassment. Others see the stories as cheap pandering that fails to engage with female and LGBTQ hockey fans’ concerns about homophobia and toxic masculinity in the sport.

“I cannot begin to describe the depths of my rage that this is actually happening,” Emily Rath, a best-selling hockey romance novelist, posted on Threads. “Yes, the NHL contacted me to participate. And I have never turned down an offer so fast.”

“They See Dollar Signs”

Romance novels focused on hockey players have been on the rise for years—the New York Public Library first highlighted the trend in 2019. Hockey romance burst into the mainstream with the massive success of romance novel-turned-streaming series Heated Rivalry, followed by Off Campus.

Jon Weinstein, a spokesperson for the NHL, tells WIRED in a statement that the campaign is a “playful nod to something that’s clearly going on in the cultural zeitgeist.”

“We were very proud to partner with real hockey authors, illustrators and voice actors in the space, and we’re grateful the players were willing to have a little fun with it too,” he says.

Typing can take extra time when users are moving between emails, Slack, documents, and other work apps throughout the day. Fireflies.ai is now making it easier to use voice for these tasks with its new Fireflies Talk feature. It lets users dictate text across emails, Slack, documents, AI prompts, CRM fields, and other applications on Mac and Windows. Talk is available for free with unlimited usage across all Fireflies plans, including the free tier. It also supports more than 100 languages and automatically cleans up and punctuates spoken text.

Fireflies Talk Brings Voice Dictation Across Work Apps

Fireflies.ai has brought voice dictation to more parts of the workday with Fireflies Talk. Users can dictate text across email, Slack, documents, AI prompts, and CRM fields. Talk also supports other applications through the Fireflies desktop app on Mac and Windows. In Slack, users can mention a teammate or group by simply saying their name. Talk can then turn the spoken name into the relevant @mention. Users do not need to speak punctuation commands while dictating. The feature extends Fireflies’ existing AI meeting experience to everyday work tasks.

Fireflies Talk is included as a free feature on all Fireflies plans. It lets users dictate unlimited times without subscribing again or setting any limits. Talk supports over 100 languages. This includes over 10 Indian languages like Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Gujarati, Kannada, Odia, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, and Sindhi. The dictation process is automatic and includes automatic punctuation. Users can speak naturally without learning special dictation commands or saying punctuation aloud.

Fireflies Talk Focuses on Local Storage and Privacy

Fireflies Talk stores completed dictations locally on the user’s device. This means Fireflies and workspace administrators cannot view the completed dictations. The audio is securely sent to Fireflies’ speech-to-text provider only for converting speech into text. Fireflies does not store the resulting dictations on its servers or use them to train AI models. The company also follows SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and HIPAA compliance standards as part of its privacy and security practices.

Fireflies Talk currently focuses on voice dictation, but the company plans to expand its capabilities. Future updates could let users use voice to retrieve information and work with information visible on their screens. Fireflies also plans to let Talk take actions on users’ behalf through voice commands. For now, Talk is available through the Fireflies desktop app on Mac and Windows. The company plans to bring the feature to iOS soon, while Android support will follow later.

The M6 Mac mini has a faster chip and is solid hardware, but that $899 hurts and there is just not enough storage at that entry price for Apple Intelligence and all of your apps.

I have loved the Mac mini since day one, more than 20 years ago. There has been one in my house consistently since the first G4 model, generally attached to a television, or used as a server, and so forth.

Oddly, the 2026 M6 Mac mini is not the cheapest Mac overall. The MacBook Neo has something to say about that, but that’s just not as convenient for my own workflows.

This time around, for the second time, the Apple Silicon Mac mini skipped a generation, and in 2026, the Mac mini is the first to use the new M6 chip. This is good and bad, but more on that in a bit.

Our review covers the base M6 model. It is the version most buyers will choose, and there’s a lot to say about that, what you really must add, and what Apple seems to have in mind for the model when $1000 or more of upgrades are added.

M6 Mac mini review: Design

The M6 Mac mini keeps the compact shape from the M4. It’s a spec-bump update through and through.

That means you get the usual current-gen design, which means that smaller square with rounded corners. It’s two inches tall, including the circular foot that also provides ventilation to the unit. The Wi-Fi antenna remains on the base of the unit, for better and worse.

The outside still looks the same as the previous one, including the black Apple logo on the top, as well as the pair of USB-C ports, the headphone jack, and the power indicator at the front.

M6 Mac mini review: A very familiar base

Around the back is an unchanged mix of ports, again without the immediately visible power button. Once again, it’s under the back corner of the casing, which caused a stir last time for being a little harder to reach than in previous Mac minis. It was a mistake then, and it’s still a mistake now.

That said, if you’re the kind of person who puts the Mac to sleep at the end of the working day and doesn’t really shut down the Mac mini itself, you may only need to care about the button on a rare occasion.

Really, the only pain point here is that power button. And even then, for most users, it will only be an issue when they actually need to press it.

M6 Mac mini review: The M6 chip and the call of AI

The headline change, and the only real change of note here, is the M6 chip. It is Apple’s first 2-nanometer processor in a desktop Mac.

The CPU has 12 cores in three types. This consists of two super, four performance, and six efficiency cores.

According to Apple, the M6 has a 40% faster CPU than the M4. A lot of this is due to the super cores, which adds two cores to the count versus the M4 version.

The GPU is also more core-heavy than before, with 12 instead of ten cores. The core improvements as well as the quantity stand to give the M6 a big leap in terms of graphical performance.

M6 Mac mini review: A more unusual placement of the compact computer.

That said, the bigger draw here will be in artificial intelligence processing, as the M6 has been practically made for those tasks.

For a start, there’s the Neural Engine, which is now a dual 16-core version. That means there are 32 cores instead of 16 cores in previous editions.

Furthermore, each of those 12 GPU cores have Neural Accelerators, which again help with AI-related task processing. It will help your Photos work from a practical standpoint, or any other “neural” tasking.

Apple says that it has four-times faster AI compute capability than the M4. In LM Studio, it can even hit 4.8 times speeds, Apple adds. We never saw that for the base model, but it is faster.

This is all fine and good, but in practice, how much it actually varies depends on your workloads. It is faster than M4 and M5 Pro Mac minis in some workloads, but in other AI workloads, the M5 Pro core count comes ahead.

It isn’t quite the AI monster that the Mac Studio has become, it’s still a device that’s more than capable of chewing away at queries. Still, though. The Mac mini is better used as an inexpensive workstation with Cloud AI compute instead of on-device, especially with the reviewed $899 model.

The base model as reviewed here has 16GB of unified memory. There are options for upgrades to 24GB and 32GB, if you can afford the upgrade costs.

Memory bandwidth is also a real gain this year. The base 16GB runs at 153GB/s, which is up from the 120GB/s of the M4.

The 24GB and 32GB tiers reach 170GB/s.

M6 Mac mini review: Single-core results

In terms of computing grunt, the M6 Mac mini can push out 4,034 on the single-core test of Geekbench 7. It’s an improvement of about 23% on the 3,277 of the M4 Mac mini, thanks to the use of a super core.

Likewise, turning to multi-core, the per-core improvement is mixed with the extra cores to give the M6 a score of 22,594. Against the M4 Mac mini’s score of 15,337, that’s a 47% improvement.

M6 Mac mini review: Multi-core results

Shifting to graphics, and the Metal test is similarly a big generational gain for the M6 over the M4. At 91,087, the M6 is scoring 68% higher than its predecessor.

M6 Mac mini review: Metal results

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There’s certainly a performance improvement here. It’s even to make even M4 Mac mini owners consider a move up.

M6 Mac mini review: Connectivity and Displays

Connectivity mostly carries over from the M4. The port layout is unchanged front and back, and that’s perfectly fine.

There is HDMI and three Thunderbolt 4 ports, which can run at up to 40Gb/s. They’re not the Thunderbolt 5 you’d get from the M5 Pro, but it’s only a problem if you need that much bandwidth.

They accompany the two USB-C ports at the front, which run at 10Gb/s. Likewise, they could’ve been Thunderbolt 5, like the M5 Pro, but there has to be some advantage to upgrading.

The Ethernet connection is a quiet improvement here. The gigabit connection has been switched for 2.5Gb Ethernet, which builds in a little network infrastructure future-proofing.

M6 Mac mini review: Rear ports

You can always pay the $100 to get the 10Gb upgrade, but there’s less of a need to do that for right now. And, that creeps you even closer to the M5 Pro Mini, or the Mac Studio.

On the wireless side, the N1 chip brings Wi-Fi 7 to the party, as well as Bluetooth 6 and Thread. For most, this is still future-proofing. Wi-Fi 7 networks have not yet proliferated, as they can still be very expensive.

The M6 Mac mini can drive up to three external displays, using a combination of Thunderbolt connections and HDMI. It can now support two external displays over a single Thunderbolt port, too.

Support includes variable refresh rates, HDR, and multi-channel audio. Those Thunderbolt 4 connections can support native DisplayPort 1.4 speeds.

The triple screen layout can consist of a pair of 6K 60Hz screens or two 4K 165Hz screens, as well as either a 5K 60Hz monitor over Thunderbolt or 4K 60Hz over HDMI.

If you go for two screens, the maximum limits include one 8K 60Hz screen or 5K 120Hz, or 4K 240Hz, as well as a second 5K or 4K HDMI display.

M6 Mac mini review: Pricing

RAM and SSD industry pricing has hit the Mac mini hard. The base M6 starts at $899.

This is $300 above the M4 model’s launch price, and $500 more than what you could buy the older model through MicroCenter for, at this time in 2025. Though, to be fair, we are currently existing in a memory crisis, and so everything electronic is now very expensive.

The memory itself starts at 16GB. An upgrade to 24GB costs another $200. Going to 32GB is a $400 premium over the base model.

Storage starts at that meager and already discussed 256GB, with upgrades ranging from $200 for 512GB to $500 more for 1TB. If you want 2TB, that’s $1000 more than the base unit.

This pricing ladder isn’t great. The 256GB capacity reviewed here is hampered a bit by slower drive transfer speeds too, with it hitting about 3150 megabytes per second read and write.

The 512GB model, adding that $200, boosts this to about 6300 megabytes per second read and write speeds. This 512GB is really what we consider the bare minimum for the 2026 Mac mini, since Apple Intelligence is no longer optional, and the 20GB or so models will install regardless of your setting.

And, it’s not slotted storage, like the M4 Mac mini was, eliminating that option. For budgetary reasons, we do recommend external SSD or hard drive storage

All said, Apple’s pricing could’ve been a lot worse. It’s painful for those on tight budgets, but upgrades have always done that, even without memory market shenanigans.

The M6 Mac mini is not as good a processing bargain as the Mac Studio is, but it’s also about half the price with some well-selected upgrades at purchase.

As always, consider your workflows. The M6 edges out the M5 family in single-core use. It’s hard to recommend the $899 Mac mini M6 configuration with the storage the way it is.

M6 Mac mini review: A pint-sized powerhouse, at a price

The M6 Mac mini is a familiar box with a faster heart. It’s the continuing pattern for Mac upgrades, where Apple makes the engine faster, while keeping everything else almost exactly the same.

It remains an impressive piece of engineering, with a lot of power, in a small space, sipping power the whole while. Price increases aside, that’s still very much the case here.

The gains are all inside, and they are real. The CPU, GPU, and AI performance are all welcome jumps, especially for those with Mac Studio dreams but a Mac mini budget.

The video support and faster 2.5Gb Ethernet too good to have.

M6 Mac mini review: Continuing to take up a small amount of desk space.

The catch is that SSD at entry-level and that higher price. At $899, the base model costs $300 more than before, and that’s hard to escape.

For first-time buyers, the M6 Mac mini remains an easy recommendation, assuming more SSD space is bought at purchase, if they want something beefy and don’t want a MacBook Neo. Upgraders from the M4 should weigh the AI gains against how much is in their wallets.

M6 Mac mini Pros

• Large CPU, GPU, and AI performance gains
• Dual Neural Engine suits local AI work
• Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and 2.5Gb Ethernet

M6 Mac mini Cons

• Costs $300 more than the M4’s launch price
• No Thunderbolt 5, unlike the Pro model
• Profoundly tight 256GB base storage, which is the biggest problem

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

With Apple Intelligence, 256GB for a Mac mini is just too small. And, on top of that, that configuration is half the speed of the 512GB version.

I do think that the $1099 model with more storage is the better option. That version is a 4 out of 5.

The RAM and Flash commodity pricing is a real problem for the Mac mini. That price increase cannot be ignored. The math on this is enormously different if the 512GB version was $899.

But it isn’t. As such, the entry-level M6 Mac mini will be fine for a first desktop, or an adjunct to an iPhone-primary device, because that 256GB storage just cannot be ignored. Most of this target market has mostly single-core loads, and will be perfectly fine with a MacBook Neo, upgraded, for less money.

While it’s not my main computer, I’m keeping my M4 Mac mini for what it’s being used for. There’s just too much of a price premium not to.

As far as my main computer goes. after I sold my M1 Ultra Mac Studio, after much hemming and hawing, I picked the M5 Max Mac Studio instead of a M6 Mac mini with about $1200 in upgrades to get it where I wanted. It was just too close in pricing, with the M5 Max winning the day.

We’ll see what happens with Mac mini after the rumored quick jump to M7 in about a year.

Where to buy the M6 Mac mini

Apple’s M6 Mac mini has a starting retail price of $899, but Amazon is already offering a discount on the standard configuration at the time of this review. The $20 markdown brings the price of the M6/16GB/256GB spec down to $879.99.

You can compare prices across every configuration in our Mac mini Price Guide, with deals available on numerous models, including storage upgraded ones that we recommend.

Leaks point to a busy October for Apple with a new Apple TV, HomePod mini, and Home Hub launching in tandem with the iPhone Duo. Here are the latest rumors and more on the AppleInsider Podcast.

The iPhone 18 Pro Max camera system is Apple’s best yet, but the gains are small year-over-year. The more interesting comparison will be when your hosts can get their hands on iPhone Duo to see exactly how that camera performs.

Leaks show that Apple is set to release an updated Apple TV 4K, a HomePod mini with Siri AI, and the long-awaited Home Hub tablet in October. A separate rumor places the announcement of these products on October 13.

Your hosts also discuss how Apple is covered when its competitors announce new products, like Meta VR Glasses. There is also a lot of talk around AI agents getting mascot-like characters even as Apple continues to push Siri.

BONUS: Subscribe via Patreon or Apple Podcasts to hear AppleInsider+, the extended edition. This time, your hosts discuss Apple Watch Ultra 4 and the upgraded Apple Health experience.

Links from the show:

• iPhone 18 Pro Max cameras are Apple’s best yet, but only when you squint
• Refreshed HomePod mini, Apple TV and new HomeHub coming on October 13
• iPhone 18 Pro Max review
• M5 Max Mac Studio review: Far better choice than Ultra for most desks
• ‘Get Ready’ to pre-order the iPhone Duo starting October 12
• Unsurprisingly, Meta’s Muse AI agent blatantly ignores user permissions
• ChatGPT as an extension in Siri dramatically underperformed, says OpenAI
• New Apple TV 4K leak confirms a very familiar form factor
• iPad mini finally getting FaceTime camera move, leak suggests
• Apple’s next HomePod mini won’t get a redesign, but will get some new colors
• Apple Intelligence is coming to the the next entry-level iPad
• Apple’s spatial computing strategy was on full display at Meta Connect
• Apple’s smart glasses predicted for 2027, upgraded Apple Vision Pro 2028
• Apple Vision Pro’s development graveyard exemplifies Apple’s ‘1,000 no’s to every yes’
• Apple’s US staff will get extended Thanksgiving break under Ternus too
• Snoopy & Fraggles getting new holiday specials on Apple TV
• How to watch ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’ for free in 2026
• Small layoffs and budget cuts are hitting Apple, with more expected
• Apple Watch Ultra 4 review: An end-to-end health ecosystem
• Apple Health, now with AI

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