hi bud buds,
this past week, apple held its annual fall hardware event. here’s the new product announcements you need to know:
🤩 real-time audio translation for airpods; absolutely love this one
👍 iphone air: the thinnest iphone ever. pundits say this lays the groundwork for foldables in the near future 👀
👍 new apple watches, with hypertension alerts, sleep scores, and satellite connectivity
👍 center stage, an improved front camera that allows you to take landscape selfies without rotating your phone
👍 memory integrity enforcement, a new security upgrade that makes iphones much tougher against spyware and forensic attacks
🥱 iphone 17 pro, with upgraded camera and better battery life
🥱 iphone 17, with improved display and cameras
notably, not much ai news. however, i low key think that’s okay, and a testament to apple’s incredible market position. they’ll reap the benefits of great ai apps being built within their ecosystem, without working nearly as hard as everyone else.
have a great week, y’all. i love you.
- dj
last week’s biggest product releases
big news! huge!
robinhood launched robinhood social, a social network inside the app where users can post verified trades, follow other investors, and view trading stats like profit rates
anthropic launched claude file editing, letting users create and edit spreadsheets, documents, slide decks, and pdfs directly in claude
personal faves
youtube launched multi-language audio after a two-year pilot, enabling creators to dub videos in various languages using ai
lyft launched robotaxis in atlanta, offering may mobility robotaxis via the lyft app. i <3 autonomous vehicles
amazon’s zoox also launched robotaxis in las vegas. unlike lyft and waymo, zoox’s vehicles don’t resemble a car (no steering wheel or pedals). did i mention i <3 autonomous vehicles?
nice job guys
microsoft launched early access to visual studio 2026, the first major update to the ide (its 2nd most popular after vs code) in 5+ years. it comes with a redesigned interface and native ai integrations. long run, does this kill cursor?
gmail launched a purchases tab, which organizes all your package delivery emails in one place so users can see what’s arriving soon 🙂 love it
spotify launched lossless audio, letting premium members enjoy studio-quality streaming at no extra cost
spotify launched smart filters, letting users filter playlists by activity, mood, or genre
uber announced blade helicopters will be supported in its app by 2026
social news
meta is testing community notes improvements. anyone can now request a note, rate if a note is helpful, and get notified if posts they’ve interacted with receive a note
mastodon launched quote posts, letting users reshare posts with their own commentary
bluesky launched private bookmarks, letting users save posts privately to a “saved” section
other llm news
nvidia launched rubin cpx, a gpu designed for large context inference
thinking machines lab launched connectionism, a research blog
idk tbh
amazon music launched weekly vibe, an ai-curated weekly playlist. this feels like more a data science problem than an llm problem?
box launched box automate, a system for automating ai workflows. idk yet if box has a ‘right to win’ these user workflows (as opposed to a zapier, who already has a lot of traction in this space.)
that’s it for this week; thanks for reading. if you enjoyed this issue, please consider sharing it with a friend so i can get rich and buy my wife a nice tennis bracelet.
love, dj