Jefferies cut Apple from hold to underperform on Monday. That is the bank’s equivalent of a sell rating. It also cut its price target from $285.56 to $263.66.

Fortune’s Sebastian Herrera reported the call. The bank’s supply-chain checks produced three reasons. Apple has cancelled a rumoured all-glass iPhone, memory prices are surging, and there is little visible progress on AI.

The first of those is the one that matters. That handset was expected next year, for the iPhone’s 20th anniversary.

The cancelled phone is the argument

Jefferies put its reasoning plainly. “We believe this shows that introducing new form factors in the iPhone to drive higher [average selling price] is more difficult than expected.”

Average selling price is the lever Apple has pulled for a decade. A new shape justifies a higher number on the sticker. Cancel the shape and the lever goes with it.

That leaves the foldable iPhone, which Apple may reveal next month. Jefferies expects it to be the company’s only margin driver. Memory costs push the bank’s estimate to $2,199 for the 256GB version and $3,099 for the 2TB version.

Those are laptop prices on a phone. They are also an argument that the margin has to come from somewhere.

Memory is eating the hardware business

The cost of computer memory is why Apple raised prices on Macs and iPads. AI data centres are absorbing the supply. Tim Cook signed off his final earnings call with a warning about a “hundred-year flood” in memory chip pricing.

Most of the DRAM supply sits with three companies. Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung control it, a concentration Cook has lamented in public.

Apple has been looking for a way around that. The Wall Street Journal reported that it is testing memory from China’s CXMT. Buying Chinese memory chips at scale could draw objections from the White House.

Six sell ratings, and the last time was 2012

Bloomberg counts at least six firms now carrying sell-equivalent ratings on Apple. That matches a high last seen in 2012, shortly after the death of Steve Jobs.

Jefferies is not the first bank to move this summer. KeyBanc Capital Markets cut Apple to underweight in July, on iPhone demand.

Edison Lee, the Jefferies analyst behind the call, took the argument further on Bloomberg Tech. Apple, he told Ed Ludlow, is no longer the “king of the supply chain”.

The other side of the trade

Not everyone reads six sell ratings as a reason to sell. CNBC’s Investing Club published its counterpoint the same afternoon. Its headline told readers not to let a Wall Street downgrade scare them out of the stock.

Apple also disputes the AI leg of the case. Cook has framed the company’s on-device approach as a deliberate advantage rather than a gap.

“The ability to run some percentage of requests on-device is also very strategic, sort of a competitive weapon if you will,” he said.

Investors have been less patient. They were already running out of patience with Apple’s AI promises before this downgrade landed.

Ternus inherits the argument next month

John Ternus takes over as chief executive next month, succeeding Cook. Apple’s annual iPhone event is expected in early September. The foldable is expected with it.

He arrives with two demands running at once. One is the margin story. The other is product, and the company has spent the past year rebuilding the design team after a run of senior departures.

The quarter was fine. That is the point.

Apple’s July guidance put iPhone sales at mid-teens percentage growth this quarter. The iPhone is roughly half the business. That is a deceleration from 22% growth in the quarter just ended, and Apple warned that gross margins would come under pressure.

Growth at that rate is not a crisis, and Jefferies is not arguing that it is. The argument is narrower than the headline suggests.

If price rises have to carry the margin, the ceiling on what Apple can charge becomes the investment case. The only new shape left is a foldable starting at $2,199. That is a great deal of weight for one handset to hold.

The fintech’s French entity becomes its second full EU banking hub.

Revolut has received a full banking licence in France, giving the fintech giant a second European Union hub.

Revolut Bank SA (RBSA) was granted the licence following a joint assessment by the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) – a part of France’s central bank – and the European Central Bank, with the decision formally adopted by the ECB Governing Council. The company, which claims more than 75m customers worldwide, said the move marks a “historic milestone” in its European journey.

The licence lands as Revolut deepens its roots across western Europe, its largest and fastest-growing region with about 30m customers, including close to 8m who joined in the past year. Ireland accounts for more than 3.4m of those customers.

Over the last year, the company has committed more than €1bn in regional investment, hired more than 600 people and confirmed a 2027 opening for its new western European HQ in Paris.

RBSA will progressively begin serving customers across Europe, starting with France, before Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain follow in later phases. Revolut’s Lithuanian entity, Revolut Bank UAB – which currently serves its Irish customers – remains the cornerstone of operations for the rest of the EEA under a dual-hub model, with both the SA and UAB bodies supervised by their local regulator and the ECB.

“This licence gives us the foundation to build the next generation of banking for more than 30m customers across western Europe,” said Nik Storonsky, founder and CEO of Revolut. “France has become a leading financial hub, supported by a dynamic financial ecosystem and a robust regulatory framework. It is the ideal platform to accelerate Revolut’s next phase of growth, bringing us one step closer to our ambition of becoming one of Europe’s largest and most trusted banks.”

Béatrice Cossa-Dumurgier, CEO for western Europe at Revolut, said: “This achievement reflects months of close collaboration with the ACPR and the European Central Bank, whose rigorous standards have helped us build the right foundations for long-term growth in the region. We are grateful for the constructive dialogue we’ve had throughout this process. Our focus now turns to execution.

“We’ll begin by serving customers in France before progressively expanding across western Europe, while accelerating the localisation of our products and services to better meet the needs of retail and business customers in each market.”

The French approval is the latest in a run of regulatory wins for Revolut this year. It finally secured its full UK banking licence in March after a five-year wait, applied for a US banking licence around the same time, and in July launched its first Asia-Pacific banking entity in Australia after receiving regulatory approval there.

Revolut now operates across 40 markets. The company reported its fifth consecutive year of profitability in March, with group revenues up 46pc in 2025 to $6bn, and is reportedly gearing up for a public listing around 2028 at a valuation of between $150bn and $200bn.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

I’ve always thought the Atlas Cross Sport looked like an Atlas that didn’t quite find its personality; competent but a little forgettable. Volkswagen apparently agreed.

The automaker just revealed a fully redesigned 2027 Cross Sport. It now has a sharper exterior, a genuinely upmarket cabin, and, most importantly, more power under the hood. Further, it’s arriving early next year as the sportier five-seat alternative to the three-row Atlas.

So what actually changed on the outside and inside?

Based on an updated MQB Evo platform, the new Cross Sport measures around 4,968mm in length, over 127mm shorter than its three-row sibling. The lower stance and a sharply raked rear roofline give it a sporty look. 

Stacked LED headlights, an illuminated VW badge on every trim (except the base model), and a flush-mounted tailgate round out the exterior overhaul. Volkswagen is also offering three new paint colors, including a Blackberry Metallic option. 

Inside, you’ll get a wraparound dashboard loop, wood trim, contrast stitching, and ambient lighting that replace what used to feel like a fairly utilitarian cabin. Every trim now gets a reworked 12-way driver’s seat. Upper trims also add full-back massage for both front occupants.

What about the tech and the engine?

Following the global trend of larger screens, the 2027 Cross Sport gets a 15-inch infotainment display, which is standard on roughly 90% of the lineup, and a new physical dial for controlling volume and drive modes. There’s a 10.3-inch digital gauge cluster across the board as well.

Power comes from an updated turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder, which now makes 282hp, a 13hp bump. The engine is paired with an eight-speed automatic and optional 4Motion all-wheel drive. 

While the pricing hasn’t been announced yet, I’m expecting the company to reveal more details as the launch approaches in early 2027. With the Atlas family making up roughly a third of Volkswagen’s US sales, this redesign carries real financial stakes beyond just refreshing an aging model. 

• SpaceX and Tesla commit $16.8 billion to build a gigantic Texas chip factory
• TeraFab could cover more than 100 million square feet when fully built
• Elon Musk claims TeraFab will reach 50 times the size of the Pentagon

SpaceX and Tesla have revealed more details in their plan to invest $16.8 billion in a massive semiconductor factory planned for Grimes County, Texas.

The facility, known as TeraFab, is expected to manufacture chips for several computing-intensive applications associated with both companies.

If you were hoping for an all-glass iPhone, a new report from Barron’s might shatter that dream. The financial news source reports that Jefferies analyst Edison Lee believes development on an all-glass mobile device has come to a halt.

According to the report, Lee thinks the device was canceled because of “poor production yield,” or not enough defect-free units being successfully made during production.

An Apple representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The device was rumored to launch in the fall of 2027 to celebrate the iPhone’s 20th anniversary, and Barron’s reports it could have cost an eye-watering $2,060.

Rumors of an all-glass iPhone began after Apple filed for a patent in 2019 on an electronic device with a “six-sided glass enclosure.” The device in the patent resembles an iPhone, with app icons on one side and a way to signal to others that you’re on a call on the other side. The device also has curved glass panels and seemingly no cutouts.

“We believe the plan was to extend the all-glass features to future iPhone Pro and Pro Max models, further raising their average selling price and margin,” Lee wrote, according to Barron’s.

For more on Apple, here’s what to know about iOS 27 and everything the company announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

Zachary McAuliffe

Senior writer

Advertisement

Zach began writing for CNET in November, 2021 after writing for a broadcast news station in his hometown, Cincinnati, for five years. You can usually find him hanging out with his wife, son and dog in their home.

See full bio

For years, the Search button has been an integral part of the Google Search experience. However, right now, typing “google.com” into a browser is reportedly bringing up a new simplified layout that doesn’t include the Search button anymore (for a select group of signed-out users). 

It appears that the search giant is testing a new, AI-first layout with three dedicated buttons, which are new for traditional Google Search users, but familiar for those who use the Gemini chatbot on a regular basis.  

What exactly did Google swap in?

Search Engine Watch first spotted the change and confirmed it independently across three different web browsers, including Chrome, Edge, and Comet (via Android Authority). The redesigned homepage drops the classic Google Search button.

It seems to feature three new AI-first buttons: Create images, Ask about files, and Brainstorm. These sit right under the horizontal search bar. The AI Mode button still remains inside the search box itself. The “I am feeling lucky” button seems to have survived the design. 

What’s even more interesting is that the Ask about files and Brainstorm reportedly work without logging in at all. The buttons apparently let users upload a document or a PDF and ask questions about it or think out loud with Gemini. 

Creating images is the one holdout, which is gated behind a sign-in wall, likely because Google wants a verified account attached before it burns through compute money on Nano Banana generations.

Is this actually rolling out, or just a test?

Here’s the catch. The report mentions this new layout only shows for logged-out visitors. Even then, not everyone’s seeing it. Factors like location, browser, and session all seem to matter. Google hasn’t confirmed the scope of change as well.

Here’s how I see this, though. This isn’t something that’s worth ignoring. Google has spent decades defending the simplicity and functionality of its homepage. However, quietly relegating “Search” behind AI-first buttons, or at least testing it, tells us about the company’s priorities. 

While I won’t ask you to expect the classic layout’s days to be numbered, I can’t deny Google’s recent push toward its AI ambitions. For now, the layout appears to be a part of an A/B test being shown to a small number of users.  

Apple’s fifth developer beta of iOS 27 has just arrived, and with it, redesigned icons for several key apps, and a lot more than normal than this late in the beta cycle. Here’s what’s new.

On Monday, three weeks after the release of iOS 27 beta 4, Apple made the fifth developer beta available for download. iOS 27 beta 1 introduced the long-overdue Siri AI, while the second beta included improvements to the Apple Home and Apple Wallet apps.

The third beta brought additional voice customization options for Siri AI, in the form of pace and expressivity sliders, albeit only for American English voices. Monday’s iOS 27 developer beta, however, expands these settings to British English voices.

Still, the new settings aren’t available across all devices running iOS 27. Advanced Siri AI features require at least 12GB of RAM on iOS 27, hence the restriction, meaning the new voice sliders can only be found on an iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, or iPhone Air.

As with most beta updates, visual tweaks are also present in iOS 27 beta 5. Icons for the Preview, Remote, Safari, Settings, and Siri applications have been updated, as has the Orders icon in the Apple Wallet app.

The Siri icon now features a more prominent Liquid Glass look, while the app icon for Safari now has a dot in the center. Apple has also included new update screens when the Apple Wallet, Apple Music, App Store, and Photos apps are launched for the first time.

iOS 27 beta 5 features a new ‘Before Searching’ option in the Settings app.

In the Settings app itself, under the Search Settings section, Apple has added a new option labeled Before Searching. This lets users choose how many apps appear as suggestions during searches, among other things.

Additionally, the Settings app now also shows when the most recent iOS update was installed. This detail could be useful for those who rely on automatic software updates.

Apple has also tweaked the Control Center with iOS 27 beta 5. Cellular network types are no longer displayed, so you won’t see “5G” or “LTE” when your phone is connected to a Wi-Fi network. However, the Control Center and Status bar do feature new cellular icon bars.

Meanwhile, when a screenshot is taken on Monday’s beta, the the annotations toolbar will now shrink and hover. It’s a neat visual modification, but nothing groundbreaking.

Overall, the fifth developer beta of iOS 27 is a relatively light release. Aside from the updated app icons, Siri voice settings, and Before Search settings, the beta doesn’t offer anything the average user would notice.

I was recently digging through my Instagram settings, trying to disable Meta’s now-defunct feature that allowed anyone to create AI deepfakes of me without consent. Anger bubbled up inside as I tapped through the Kafkaesque opt-out process.

Rather than throwing my phone across the room, I blurted to my partner that we should leave San Francisco behind and be off-grid sheep farmers. Something analog. In that moment, anything sounded better than this ongoing, generative-AI-induced hell.

Many Americans are having similar reactions to the growing prevalence of generative AI in daily life. “The AI revolution has happened, and everybody hates it,” says Meredith Broussard, a data journalism professor at New York University and author of Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World. In a recent Gallup poll, Americans’ increased familiarity with generative AI coincides with negative attitudes about the technology. This is especially true for young people between 18 and 29, where almost half see generative AI as doing more harm than good.

While this AI backlash has been brewing for the last few years, more companies appear to be directly addressing these concerns. LinkedIn added a “seems like AI slop” button for reporting AI-generated content on the platform, despite still hosting plenty of generative AI tools. Snapchat announced that fully AI-generated videos would no longer be eligible for its discovery feed. Substack recently added an AI detection tool to police writers.

The backlash’s “why” is simple at its core. Many Americans feel like they never consented to any of this. I had no idea that my online interactions would one day be scraped en masse for AI model training. I didn’t ask for Instagram to enable deepfakes on my account. I didn’t want Google to push AI-generated answers at the top of search results. I woke up one day, and generative AI features were stuffed into every corner of all the software I rely on without my consent.

Whether it’s AI models scraping your data or noisy data centers popping up in your backyard, the AI revolution seems to be an event happening to us without making us feel like active participants.

“Consent is really important,” Broussard tells WIRED. “We can connect that to the way that women, queer people, people of color, and minorities get exploited and abused online. Tech companies have never really been sensitive to issues of consent.”

Public backlash appears to be working, at times, in getting unwanted AI features shut down. “They just roll them out and see what sticks, because nobody really knows what this is for,” says Nick Seaver, an associate professor of anthropology at Tufts University focusing on technology and society. Google recently rolled back the ability for people to use generative AI to tweak satellite images on Google Earth almost immediately after launching it, following reporting from 404 Media. Additionally, Meta turned off the aforementioned deepfaking tool for Instagram users after three days of public outcry and viral videos with millions of views criticizing the feature.

There’s also a growing rejection of generative AI in marketing materials. Many people online reacted negatively to major brands, like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, incorporating generative AI visuals into their ad spots. Even local shops see backlash for promoting events using AI-generated posters.

Beyond online outcry, more people are starting to protest against the building of data centers that power these AI tools. “There’s a lot of pushback coalescing around data centers,” says Emily Bender, coauthor of The AI Con. “Data centers are important because they are focal points of environmental and economic damage.” Americans across the political spectrum have recently united in these data center protests.