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Samsung Galaxy phones can now use Apple’s AirDrop to send files straight to iPhones, iPads, and Macs
Samsung Electronics Co. has rolled out a major cross-platform update: Galaxy S26 series owners can now share photos, videos, and files directly with iPhones, iPads, and Macs using Apple’s AirDrop protocol — all through the built-in Quick Share app, Bloomberg News reports.
The new “Share with Apple devices” toggle appears in Settings > Connected devices > Quick Share. Once enabled, users can select visibility options like “Everyone for 10 minutes” for quick, secure transfers without cables or extra apps.
The rollout starts today in South Korea and expands globally this week to North America, Europe, and other major markets. Samsung says support will come to more Galaxy devices in the future.
This move follows Google’s similar integration on Pixel phones last year.
MacDailyNews Note: Yes, both Google and Samsung effectively relied on reverse-engineering Apple’s AirDrop protocol (specifically its underlying proprietary AWDL — Apple Wireless Direct Link — technology) to enable this cross-platform compatibility. There was no official collaboration or API access provided by Apple.
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Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference returns the week of June 8th
Apple today announced it will host its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) online from June 8-12, bringing developers together from around the world for a week of connection, exploration, and innovation. In addition to the online experience, developers and students will also have the opportunity to celebrate in person during a special event at Apple Park on June 8th.
WWDC26 will spotlight incredible updates for Apple platforms, including AI advancements and exciting new software and developer tools. As part of the company’s ongoing commitment to supporting developers, WWDC will also provide unique access to Apple engineers and designers, and insight into new tools, frameworks, and features.
WWDC kicks off with the Keynote and Platforms State of the Union on Monday, June 8th. The conference continues online all week with over 100 video sessions and interactive group labs and appointments, where developers can connect directly with Apple engineers and designers to explore the latest announcements. The conference will take place on the Apple Developer app, website, and YouTube channel; and on the Apple Developer bilibili channel in China.
“WWDC is one of the most exciting times for us at Apple because it’s a chance for our incredible global developer community to come together for an electrifying week that celebrates technology, innovation, and collaboration,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations, in a statement. “We can’t wait to see many of you online and in person for what is sure to be one of our best WWDC events yet.”
The special in-person event at Apple Park on June 8 will offer developers and students the opportunity to watch the Keynote and the Platforms State of the Union, meet with Apple engineers and designers, take part in special labs and activities, and connect with the worldwide developer community. Space will be limited; details on how to submit a request to attend can be found on the Apple Developer website.
Apple is proud to support student developers through the Swift Student Challenge, one of many Apple programs that uplift the next generation of entrepreneurs, coders, and designers. This year’s winning students will be notified on Thursday, March 26, and will be eligible to request to attend the special event at Apple Park. In addition, 50 Distinguished Winners will be recognized for their outstanding submissions and invited to Cupertino for a three-day experience.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple will share additional conference information in advance of WWDC through the Apple Developer app, Developer website, and Apple Developer YouTube channel. Developers can also follow the conference worldwide on LinkedIn and WeChat, and on bilibili in China.
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Apple TV’s ‘For All Mankind’ sees streaming surge ahead of season 5
The hit Apple TV sci-fi series “For All Mankind” has surged in popularity, breaking into the top 10 most-watched titles on Apple TV. The climb in viewership arrives just in time for the show’s highly anticipated return with its upcoming fifth season.
As of now, per FlixPatrol, “For All Mankind” is ranked at No. 9, cracking Apple TV’s list of the top 10 TV shows available on the platform. It is sitting just under “Pluribus,” the new sci-fi drama series created by Vince Gilligan (“Breaking Bad”). “For All Mankind” might continue to rise in the coming days as more fans catch up or revisit past episodes leading into the Season 5 premiere, which is scheduled to arrive on Mar. 27.
The concept of “For All Mankind” is that it reimagines the space race, set in a world where the Soviet Union landed on the moon first. That leads to a decades-long escalation of competition between the United States and USSR. Each season jumps forward in time to further explore how this alternate reality reshapes global power dynamics, serving as a grounded drama series with sci-fi elements. Season 4, which took the story to the 2000s, focused heavily on the commercialization of space with Mars serving as a semi-established outpost.
Season 5 takes place several years after the Goldilocks asteroid heist. The official logline for the new season reads, “Happy Valley has grown into a thriving colony with thousands of residents and a base for new missions that will take us even further into the solar system. But with the nations of Earth now demanding law and order on the Red Planet, friction continues to build between the people who live on Mars and their former home.”
MacDailyNews Note: Here’s the official trailer for “For All Mankind” season 5:
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New Apple TV set-top box and HomePod mini speaker are ready launch
Apple retail stores worldwide are seeing low stock levels for the full-sized HomePod, HomePod mini, and Apple TV set-top box. Low inventory often signals that refreshed models are incoming, though we shouldn’t rush to assumptions just yet.
Reports indicate Apple has had updated versions of the Apple TV and HomePod mini prepared since last year, but the company has delayed their release to align with the rollout of an enhanced Siri and other Apple Intelligence features.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
Those features are still nowhere near ready, so if the new hardware is indeed coming soon, it probably means Apple just got tired of waiting. (Though the AI features are essential to a separate long-awaited home hub, they’re just a nice add-on for the HomePods and Apple TV.)
The full-sized HomePod, updated more recently than the HomePod mini, has seen inventory decline at some physical stores but is still widely available from Apple’s website. The Apple TV appears to have the best stock of all three products based on checks of the company’s website. The HomePod mini, on the other hand, is hard to find right now at brick-and-mortar locations. And customers trying to order from Apple’s website are seeing shipping delays until early next month — a notable development.
MacDailyNews Take: Siri hasn’t ever worked very well, so just release them anyway.
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The biggest surprise of Apple’s MacBook Neo
The MacBook Neo caught many people off guard with its stunning price-to-performance ratio, impressive overall quality, and surprising affordability, coupled with strong distribution potential. Plenty of reviews are already calling it a true market “disruptor,” with some claiming Windows PCs are no longer competitive at all.
So the real question is: Will the MacBook Neo actually move the needle in a meaningful way? Is it positioned to take meaningful market share from Windows laptops, and perhaps even pull users away from Chromebooks or iPads?
Apple’s sales of about 24 million Macs for a base of 260 million users implies a life span for Macs of nearly 11 years. However, all the other PCs sold add up to 238 million for a user base of 1.2 billion. That means the life span for the non-Mac PC is only 5 years.
This is, of course, reflected in the price difference but with the MacBook Neo, the potential for a 10 year old life for a $500 laptop puts the Neo price at $50/yr or 14c/day. Based on data for 2025, the average selling price of a new Windows PC is estimated to be $600 to $900 for consumer models. At $700 for a life span of 5 years makes the PC cost $140/yr or 38c/day.
This means that the average PC is more than twice the cost of the MacBook Neo. Now that is a surprise.
MacDailyNews Take: Yup. As we wrote a few years ago:
Total Cost of Ownership should be of more concern to the world’s personal computer buyers than initial sticker price. You get what you pay for, so get a Mac. – MacDailyNews, June 25, 2004
Why are so many people so afraid to imagine an end to the dark ages of personal computing? Too many MSFT shares in the mutual fund? We have no such problem. Apple Mac will embrace, then extinguish – whether analysts grasp what’s happening or not. — MacDailyNews, March 23, 2007
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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
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Apple’s MacBook Neo is the perfect AI computer
Apple’s MacBook Neo is exceptionally well-equipped for the very thing tech companies obsess over these days: AI. With its powerful Neural Engine and optimized on-device processing, it delivers fast, efficient Apple Intelligence features that outperform many higher-priced competitors in real-world AI workloads.
It’s not that other Macs are less capable. There is, however, something magical about the idea that a $600 entry-level Mac is as capable as a $4000 MacBook Pro, or $6000 Mac Studio, when it comes to the most intensive computing that any of us do today.
That, of course, is because most AI computing happens in the cloud, not on your computer. That means that the limiting factor isn’t memory, storage, or how fast your processor is. No, the limiting factor is how well you’re able to get your AI tool of choice to understand what you want. Oh, and I guess the speed of your internet connection.
That means that a MacBook Neo, with an A18 Pro, 8GB of memory, and a 256 GB or 512 GB SSD, will be just fine to run the Mac ChatGPT app or run Gemini in Safari. And that changes what your laptop actually needs to be.
With the MacBook Neo, a high school student, freelancer, or small business owner can now own hardware that gives them full access to the best AI tools in the world.
MacDailyNews Note: More info about Apple’s rather amazing MacBook Neo can be found here.
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Broadcasters urge EU to tighten rules for Apple, other Big Tech firms in smart TV standoff
Apple, Google, Amazon, and Samsung’s smart TVs and virtual assistants should fall under the EU’s toughest tech rules because of their growing market power, the world’s largest broadcasters told EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera on Monday, Reuters reports.
The call by the Association of Commercial Television and Video on Demand Services in Europe (ACT) — whose members include Canal+, RTL, Mediaset, ITV, Paramount+, NBCUniversal, Walt Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Sky, and TF1 Groupe — underscores the intensifying battle between broadcasters and Big Tech for market share in a lucrative industry.
Reuters:
Android TV, which increased its market share from 16% to 23% from 2019 to 2024, Amazon Fire OS whose market share rose from 5% to 12% in the same period and Samsung’s Tizen OS with its 24% market share should be designated as gatekeepers under the EU’s Digital Markets Act, the broadcasters said, citing data from a 2025 market study.
“A limited number of operators are therefore gaining growing ability to shape outcomes for millions of users and businesses by controlling access to audiences and content distribution,” ACT said in a letter to Ribera seen by Reuters, the first public broadside from broadcasters against Big Tech.
The broadcasters also voiced concerns about virtual assistants, the most well known of which are Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, while OpenAI entered the field last year with a beta feature called Tasks for its AI chatbot ChatGPT.
The European Commission has yet to label any virtual assistants as gatekeepers under the DMA.
“The lack of designation of virtual assistants creates a regulatory void, allowing powerful AI assistants to become de facto gatekeepers for media content through mobile phones, smart speakers and in-car radio infotainment services, without being subject to DMA obligations,” the broadcasters said.
They urged Ribera to subject smart TVs and virtual assistants to the DMA on the basis of qualitative criteria even if they do not meet the quantitative benchmarks which are more than 45 million monthly active users and 75 billion euros ($87 billion) in market capitalisation.
MacDailyNews Take: Can’t compete? Litigate and or over regulate.
The European Union is an over-regulated, slow-motion train wreck. The single biggest reason why the EU doesn’t innovate because of onerous, stifling EU red tape.
The European Union arose because the Europeans couldn’t compete on their own with the rest of the world, so they each lined up to surrender their national sovereignty, unique cultures, and dignity for an undemocratic, opaque, wasteful, bloated, bureaucratic quasi-governmental blob – and, even with the EU’s thumbs all over the scale, they still can’t compete. — MacDailyNews, March 4, 2024
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