In this week’s Sunday Reboot, the sudden top-table rule changes and how John Ternus will be a good Apple CEO, whether he likes it or not.

Sunday Reboot is a weekly column covering some of the lighter stories within the Apple reality distortion field from the past seven days. All to get next week underway with a good first step.

More than one job change

September is always a big month for Apple, but this one is bigger than ever. Not because of the inbound hardware, but because of the people making it.

The key change is at the top of the Apple executive food chain, as the multi-month transition process has almost concluded. John Ternus is now the CEO, taking over from Tim Cook, but that doesn’t mean the process has ended.

Of course, there’s some behind-the-scenes logistics happening, such as Cook moving out of his office and into a new one for the leadership-adjacent position of executive chairman of the board.

Ternus, meanwhile, will be watching some hardware lackeys shifting cardboard boxes full of circuit boards and unused tech from his old office to his new one. It’s a big move too, as he will be among his fellow executives instead of near his beloved hardware teams.

It’s a thing that has to happen, as Ternus takes the mantle. Though inevitably other unintended changes are also underway too.

Apple Fellow Phil Schiller

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Apple Fellow Phil Schiller has decided to reduce his workload. He’s switched out of running the App Store for a more relaxed existence within Apple, presumably taking another step to retirement.

Then there’s Luca Maestri, who was the previous CFO but continued managing Corporate Services. Except he’s not doing that anymore and current CFO Kevan Parekh has picked up those duties too.

We know that seismic change can prompt other employment updates, and a new CEO would certainly count as one. But there was no serious expectation of a mass exodus as Ternus took his seat.

There still isn’t that expectation, but it doesn’t stop things like this from happening. We do know that the Schiller change was in the last days of Cook’s management, but Maestri’s decision took place a few weeks ago, long before the CEO switch.

It’s probably safe to say that the two changes are not massively consequential to Apple.

At least, Schiller’s App Store withdrawal could be a bit worrying, until you consider it’s only part of a larger Services division. Maestri’s post-CFO role was also not what you would call critical to Apple’s success, or at least wasn’t as critical as managing a massive segment of the company.

Besides, this CEO transition has been going on for months. Anyone who would’ve seriously objected to Ternus being in control has had ample time to get out of Dodge.

The people who are still leading Apple are going to hang around for quite a while longer.

Ocean liner management

As the opening weeks and months of Ternus control continue, there may be the threat of more managerial shake-ups. But it certainly won’t be from radical moves by the CEO.

You can expect him to make small changes to how the company functions. I say small in a relative fashion, because Apple is a tech giant.

His changes need to be like a captain steering a cruise ship. It takes time to slow down and to adjust course, as rocking the boat of that size would be dangerous.

That is to say, anything he decrees will take a long time to become an actual problem for someone. If a problem does indeed manifest down the road.

Then there’s the corporate culture, since any decision Ternus makes will affect thousands of people. Even though the CEO’s word is effectively gospel, if there are enough people who disagree, there’s always the risk of a mutiny.

Apple CEO John Ternus [left] and previous CEO Tim Cook [right]

There is one more safety barrier in place to prevent Ternus from creating a Titanic-like situation. Cook is still hanging around.

Sure, he’s not going to have much of a say on what products Apple will develop. Nor should you expect him to appear during an Apple event video in the future.

But it’s hard to get away from the thought that Ternus won’t have free rein without Cook’s oversight or advice.

Cook has a wealth of experience as captain of the SS Cupertino, and it would be foolish for Ternus not to listen to anything Cook says.

You’re not going to get any insane company-destroying proclamations coming from Ternus. Anything that he does say will have been discussed and debated to an exhaustive degree to keep it sane and safe.

Ternus is a safe pair of hands. But even if he wasn’t and was hell-bent on hitting an iceberg, Cook would still be a sanity safety net.

Last week’s Sunday Reboot discussed Apple’s early Mac upgrades and John Ternus meeting Pikachu.

OLED has already conquered the premium gaming-monitor market. Now Alienware wants to take it somewhere it has historically struggled to crack: competitive esports. I got hands-on with the new Alienware AW2527HX at IFA 2026, and with a 560Hz fifth-generation Penta Tandem QD-OLED panel, a design shaped around professional players, and some wonderfully obsessive esports-focused features, Dell is making a pretty convincing case that OLED’s next battlefield is competitive gaming.

This is an esports monitor first, OLED monitor second

The timing couldn’t be more interesting. ASUS has just made its ROG Swift OLED PG259QWS Ace the official monitor for the upcoming PGL CS2 Major Singapore 2026. That monitor pushes 1080p OLED all the way to 720Hz on a glossy Tandem WOLED panel. Alienware, meanwhile, is taking a slightly different route with 560Hz QD-OLED. Either way, the message is pretty clear: OLED is starting to knock on the door of professional esports.

And this isn’t some budget 1080p monitor that happens to have OLED slapped onto it. Alienware is targeting serious competitive gamers, whether they’re already professionals or aspiring to become them. The AW2527HX is a 24.5-inch Full HD panel running at 560Hz, with a claimed 0.03ms gray-to-gray response time. Underneath that is a Penta Tandem QD-OLED panel with an RGB-stripe layout, bringing OLED’s infinite contrast and true blacks to a category that has traditionally been dominated by TN displays. Alienware also claims up to 1,500 nits of peak brightness, while the matte anti-glare low-reflectance (AGLR) coating is designed to keep the image clear even under bright tournament lighting.

At 25 inches, Full HD is still surprisingly crisp, too. And once you actually start playing, that 560Hz refresh rate makes everything feel ridiculously smooth. I tested PUBG: Battlegrounds during my demo and, despite being more of a Valorant player myself, I came away pretty impressed. OLED has long deserved a place in competitive gaming, and this monitor is one of the better arguments I’ve seen for it.

The only catch? Don’t expect it to be cheap just because it says 1080p on the box. I was told to expect pricing similar to its 32-inch OLED monitors, which puts it firmly into premium-monitor territory. Dell hasn’t officially announced the final MSRP yet, but that price alone tells you who this monitor is really for.

The stand gets weirdly serious

Alienware has made some very thoughtful decisions around the physical design, too. The base rotates smoothly and includes markings showing exactly what angle you’re using. That’s a tiny detail, but when your entire gaming setup is built around replicating a very specific competitive posture, tiny details suddenly matter a lot.

The arm itself is even more interesting. It’s essentially an inclined telescopic stand, allowing you to push the monitor all the way down and then tilt it backwards into that aggressively angled position many esports players prefer. Think of it like a tablet lying almost flat on your desk, except tilted upwards towards your face. That leaves plenty of space underneath for your keyboard and mouse.

You can obviously achieve something similar with other monitors, but usually that means buying a separate monitor arm and fiddling around with your setup. Alienware has simply built the functionality into the bundled stand. The monitor also gets a 155mm height adjustment range and up to 45 degrees of backward tilt.

And then there’s the front. Or rather, the complete lack of anything on it. There’s no giant Alienware logo staring back at you, no distracting gamer aesthetic, and no unnecessary visual nonsense. Dell told us that its work with Team Liquid directly influenced this decision: professional players didn’t want branding or anything else distracting them from the game. So all you really see is the screen.

True Stretch feels almost like cheating

My favourite feature, however, might be the one that sounds the least impressive on a spec sheet. There’s a dedicated eSports button on the back that lets you instantly switch to the monitor’s True Stretch resolution. During my demo, that meant jumping straight to 1280 x 960 without having to dive into Windows settings, GPU control panels, or configuration files.

On the Alienware, you just press a button, and you’re there!

If you’re into competitive shooters, you’ll know why that’s useful. Stretched resolution doesn’t actually change hitboxes, but it does make player models, and especially heads, appear wider on screen, which can make targets feel easier to track and hit. That’s a big reason why so many competitive players swear by 4:3 or 3:2 stretched setups. On the Alienware, you just press a button, and you’re there. It almost feels like cheating. And honestly, the fact that the whole thing worked flawlessly during my demo might be my favourite part.

Why does my OLED suddenly look like a TN?

Alienware also throws in dedicated presets for Counter-Strike, Valorant, and Apex Legends, with more customization available through the Alienware Command Center. But then there’s TN Mode, which had me doing a double take. Why on Earth would I buy an OLED monitor and then make it look like a TN panel?

The TN mode looks pretty shitty. But that’s precisely the point!

The answer, surprisingly, makes sense. Turn TN Mode on, and the colours become noticeably duller. You see, competitive players have spent years using TN displays because of their speed, and jumping straight from that familiar, washed-out look to OLED can be a bigger adjustment than you’d expect. TN Mode essentially acts as a bridge. You can get comfortable with the new monitor, keep the visual character you’re used to, and gradually make the leap to proper OLED. It’s a weird feature, but one that shows Alienware has actually thought about the people it’s trying to win over.

There’s also DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR13.5, which provides enough bandwidth to run the AW2527HX at its native 1080p and 560Hz without Display Stream Compression. For most people, that’s just another acronym to scroll past. For the sort of competitive gamer who counts every millisecond and probably has opinions about which direction their Ethernet cable should face, it’s exactly the kind of detail that matters.

OLED has entered the arena

That’s what ultimately impressed me about the AW2527HX. Alienware isn’t just throwing a 560Hz refresh rate at an OLED panel and calling it a day; it’s clearly built around how competitive players actually play, right down to the ridiculous stand and that wonderfully convenient True Stretch button. It’s specific, obsessive, and very much unapologetic about who it’s for.

And after my first hands-on, I’m starting to think Alienware might be onto something. OLED has finally earned a seat at the esports table, and the AW2527HX makes a surprisingly strong case for it. Now I just want to see what happens when I get to really put those 560Hz pixels through their paces.

off-prem

No restoration time for platform used by more than 30,000 UK organizations, including NHS trusts and medical practices

UPDATED Docmail, a service used by more than 30,000 UK businesses and public sector organizations, has been offline for several days, prompting concern among users.

Operated by CFH Docmail Ltd, the cloud-based hybrid mail service allows users to send physical letters without running their own print rooms or making trips to the post office. In other words, it handles the printing and postage of business communications.

However, Docmail has been unavailable since the start of business on September 2, according to its status page. It initially warned that the service was “experiencing slower than usual processing times,” before saying soon afterward:

“Docmail is currently unavailable while we carry out essential maintenance. Our technical team is working to complete the maintenance and restore full service as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience caused and will provide a further update once the system is available again.” 

Throughout the rest of the day, techies continued to deploy “required updates,” and the service remained unavailable as work took place to “ensure the service can be brought back online safely and reliably.”

A further update on September 3 said Docmail was still “temporarily unavailable while our teams continue to work to restore the service.” The company thanked customers for their patience and apologized for the “disruption.” At the end of the day, it admitted: “We do not yet have a confirmed restoration time. Work remains ongoing as a priority.”

By Friday – day three of disruption – the service remained unavailable, with techies still toiling to restore it and promising further updates when more information became available.

Our attention was drawn to the Docmail debacle by Reg readers concerned about the length of the outage and the lack of a restoration time.

We contacted CFH Docmail for details of the disruption’s cause and when it expects the service to be restored.

CFH says many of its more than 30,000 business and public sector customers operate in UK healthcare. It claims that more than 75 percent of medical practices use Docmail for bulk mail and individual patient mailings, such as appointment reminders.

Customers also include NHS Trusts such as Croydon Health Services, while dental practices, pharmacies, opticians, and medical research networks also rely on the service, as do some local authorities and businesses.

While the service remains offline, important communications such as health appointment reminders and letters from local councils may go unsent. ®

Updated at 12.59 UTC on September 4, 2026, to add:

Following publication of this article, a spokesperson at CFH Docmail Ltd, told us: 

“We have been made aware of an issue impacting an isolated server, used by only one client. Out of an abundance of caution and in line with our security protocols we took the decision to take Docmail offline. This proactive step is why the system has been temporarily unavailable.

“Our internal team has been working closely to investigate what happened and to ensure that when all systems are switched back on, it will be entirely safe to do so.

“This process does take time, and we are acting on the advice of external consultants to ensure we are taking the right precautions. While Docmail is ready to be reinstated, we are waiting completion of the external review before doing so. We apologise for the disruption this has caused to our customers and are working to restore service in the quickest but safest way possible.”

Apple could be preparing changes to the App Store as the company looks for ways to increase revenue and improve margins from its services business, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman via the latest edition of his Power On newsletter. The exact changes remain unclear, but the reported effort is being driven largely by new Apple CEO John Ternus and services chief Eddy Cue.

The report also links the discussions to the recent departure of longtime Apple executive Phil Schiller. After stepping down as Apple’s marketing SVP in 2020, Schiller became an Apple Fellow and took responsibility for running the App Store. According to the report, Schiller was opposed to the proposed direction because he believed such moves could further frustrate developers and governments.

Apple could look at several ways to squeeze more from the App Store

There is currently no clear indication of exactly what Apple intends to change. However, the report outlines several possible approaches that could increase the App Store’s margins or recurring revenue.

One possibility would be changing the way Apple reviews apps. The company could potentially reduce or eliminate parts of its manual review process, which could lower costs. The report notes, however, that further automation could be unpopular with users, particularly if it affects how effectively apps are reviewed.

Another option could involve Apple increasing its developer membership fee, currently listed at $99 per year. The report also suggests Apple could potentially introduce subscription fees for large developers based on traffic, effectively shifting some infrastructure costs to companies operating high-traffic apps.

For developers, those possibilities could have a much bigger impact than they initially appear to. Higher costs or new fees could make running apps on Apple’s platform more expensive, particularly for smaller developers. At the same time, changes to App Store economics could eventually influence how developers price subscriptions or services.

Developers and users will have to wait for Apple’s next move

For Apple, the reported push reflects the enormous financial importance of the App Store and its wider services business. But the company could face a delicate balancing act: increasing revenue without making the platform less attractive to developers or drawing additional scrutiny from regulators.

For now, the plans remain unconfirmed and the report does not provide a specific timeline for any App Store changes. The next step will be watching for concrete details from Apple about whether it intends to alter developer fees, app review or other aspects of the platform.

In other words, there is no App Store price hike or policy change to act on yet. But if Apple does move ahead, developers are likely to feel the effects before ordinary users do.

Generally, the launch of a new iPhone means a drop in price for the old one, but this isn’t a typical year for iPhones — not only is Apple expected to finally launch its long-rumored foldable phone, but thanks to out-of-control memory prices, it’s costing more for companies to build handsets.

On top of that, we’re actually not expecting to see a base iPhone 18 model this year, with that device reportedly landing in March or April instead. So at Apple’s September 9 launch you might only be able to choose from an iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, or iPhone 18 Ultra.