Welcome to the second installment of This Week at Apple, a short, weekly look at the stories that shaped Apple’s week. Not just what happened, but what’s worth keeping in mind once the headlines move on.
This was a fairly quiet week when it comes to Apple news. There were plenty of headlines about a foldable iPhone, as well as a slew of under-development products showing up in iOS 26 code. I've chosen not to include any of those reports this time. It all still feels a bit premature, and none of it really serves to further the story. "Apple is working on products" is hardly news.
Instead, the week was one of reflection as much as reaction. We will discuss some hopes for iOS 27, break down a significant but subtle shift in Apple’s App Store developer guidelines, and consider iOS 26.3 in relation to the more intimate and context-aware Siri experience Apple will bring with iOS 26.4.
As always, if there’s a story you think deserves attention, or a topic you want explored more deeply, send me a message on X. The goal is to keep this useful, grounded, and worth coming back to.
TIME TO START LOOKING AHEAD
Already thinking about iOS 27
It’s almost the start of the year, which means we’re six months away from WWDC 2026 and the launch of OS 27. It’s still too early to start beating the drum on what this year’s round of releases will shape up to be, but I thought I would share some early thoughts on what I hope to see in iOS 27 come next fall.
Wallpapers are one of the most personal parts of iOS. The redesigned Lock Screen in iOS 16 quietly created an entire ecosystem of wallpaper apps and independent creators. Apple acknowledged that shift, but only partially. I’d love to see the company fully embrace it with a dedicated App Store–style destination for wallpapers, or at least richer native tools for discovering and sharing them. The current Lock Screen gallery points in the right direction, but it still feels more like a showcase than a platform.
Widgets, meanwhile, have largely stood still. Since their redesigned debut in iOS 14, Apple has expanded what widgets can do through interactivity and better developer access, but their visual language hasn’t evolved much. A true 2×1 or 3×1 widget size would make a meaningful difference, allowing the Home Screen to feel lighter and more intentional instead of grid-bound.
Up until iOS 10, the iOS notification center used to have a small area up top where you’d get a brief little summary of the first thing on your calendar or weather conditions. It felt like a mini-briefing for your day. With iOS 27 and the next wave of Apple Intelligence features, I’d like to see Apple experiment with a persistent, glanceable dashboard. Something that brings together context, suggestions, Live Activities, and Apple Intelligence together in one unified place. Think Now Briefing from Galaxy and OneUI.
APPLE PAY NOW
Apple, the debt collector
This week’s news includes one of the most peculiar Apple policy turns in quite some time, regarding a sudden tweak to its developer guidelines that essentially grants Apple the right to collect unpaid fees and commissions at any time from developers.
Apple can now “offset or recoup” the money that it thinks it should receive from a developer via a deduction of payments from things such as in-app purchases. The new guidelines affect developers from regions that utilize outside payment options, including but not limited to the EU, the US, and the Japanese App Store markets.
Apple doesn’t specify how it will decide how much money is due, which carries with it some level of complexity that app developers will be watching closely. It is becoming increasingly clear through these additional streams of revenue and new payment mechanisms that Apple is more than simply functioning as a platform operator in this development community. Instead, it is operating in the role of an arbitrageur of finance in terms of actually overseeing these new streams of payments through mechanisms more akin to creditor rights than to platform policies.
iOS 26.4 IS AROUND THE CORNER
iOS 26.3 beta is fresh
Apple this week also seeded the first developer beta of iOS 26.3. There’s not much to point to yet, and that’s expected at this stage. Early x.3 releases are often about laying groundwork rather than showing features. Still, we have two new features we can expect to launch with iOS 26.3 early next year: notification forwarding for third-party smartwatches and a quicker, easier way to transfer to iPhone from Android.
For me personally, and I suspect for many in the Apple community, the most anticipated feature right now is the more personally aware Siri expected to arrive this spring. So far, all we’ve really seen is a brief demo at WWDC 2024 and a single Apple ad that has since been pulled. That’s not much to go on, but it also speaks to how difficult this feature is to demonstrate. A more personal Siri is inherently contextual. Its value will differ wildly from user to user, making it far harder to showcase than a traditional feature list.
What will be especially interesting is how Apple chooses to introduce and roll it out. Does it start with an onboarding experience that tries to explain the new capabilities and the kinds of questions Siri can now handle? Or does Apple take a quieter approach, surfacing suggestions organically based on a user’s data, habits, and context? There are still many open questions, but with iOS 26.3 laying groundwork and iOS 26.4 expected in the spring, we may not have to wait much longer to see Apple’s answer.
Quick side note: I want to give a shout-out to Beta Profiles on X. It’s one of the most consistently reliable accounts for Apple OS beta coverage, and often the first place I check when new builds drop. Genuinely a great resource and well worth supporting.
I’ll be back next Saturday. In the meantime, catch up with me on X and check out the other latest posts on Cupertino Lens.