The first full week after WWDC revealed two Apples at once: a company whose numbers defy a shrinking market – and one whose upcoming iPhones threaten to become noticeably more expensive. Between record sales and rising component costs, the week came down to a single question: who ultimately pays for the upgrade?
The post-WWDC buzz brought no calm – quite the opposite. While developers picked apart the fresh betas piece by piece, the rumor mill had long since turned to the next hardware generation, from the foldable iPhone to the MacBook Ultra, whose launch window recently seems open again. Running through all seven days was a theme we rarely had this concentrated: money. Rising memory prices, a more elaborate camera module and an unusually clear statement from Tim Cook met sales figures that are pointing upward of all times – a weekly recap between strong quarterly results and growing price worries.
🔥 Story of the Week: Apple Defies the Shrinking Market
While global smartphone demand slid for the ninth week in a row, Apple delivered against the trend: iPhone sales rose by around 10 percent year over year. The picture was even clearer for the Apple Watch – the market researchers at Counterpoint see a 21 percent increase for the first quarter of 2026, the strongest figure in years and a clear counter to the widespread narrative that the smartwatch category has long been saturated.
Both figures tell the same story: while other manufacturers fight over share in a tired market, Apple draws in buyers in practically every product class. That is the good news of the week. The unpleasant news comes further down – because this very success meets a generation of upcoming devices that cost Apple more and more to produce.
📰 What Else Mattered
Apple TV pulls off a series surge. Four announcements at once: a fourth season for "The Reluctant Traveler", a first photo call for "Silo" season 3, the comedy "Brothers" with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson for September 23 and the start of the second "Sugar" season.
An unpatchable BootROM flaw hits the A12 and A13 chips. Affected are the models from the iPhone XS to the iPhone 11 series; because the flaw is baked into the chip, it cannot be closed via an update.
Why rebuilding the new Siri is taking so long. A look behind the scenes shows how deeply Apple has rebuilt the assistant system – and why the leap is more than an ordinary software update.
Housekeeping for Smart Home and accessories. With Matter 1.6 and Product Security 1.1, Apple is catching up on standards and device security; in parallel, the company rolled out the new AirPods Pro firmware 8B41.
Italy sets its sights on Apple. Regulators are examining whether Apple favors its own iCloud service – another regulatory front alongside the already tense relationship with the EU.
macOS phases out its names. Apple is increasingly replacing the classic version names with plain numbers – a quiet but consistent step in system housekeeping.
💡 Rumor of the Week: AirPods with a Camera
Perhaps the most exciting look ahead this week led to the AirPods. Under the codename "B798," Apple is said to be considering earbuds with a built-in camera – intended less for taking photos than for spatial awareness and AI features that "understand" the surroundings. This is embedded in a larger 2027 roadmap that, according to the reports, includes a second-generation foldable iPhone alongside an anniversary iPhone; one step further out lies an A22 Pro chip on a 1.4-nanometer process that is not expected until 2028. All of this is still early supply-chain and insider speculation – but it shows the direction in which Apple might be thinking about its wearables: away from a pure audio device, toward a sensor on the head.
📊 Number of the Week: 28.6%
That is how much faster a browser with its own engine was than Safari on the iPhone in testing. The figure came from Microsoft's engineers – their benchmark credits a non-WebKit browser on iOS with around 28.6 percent more speed on Apple's own Speedometer 3.1 test. The number reignites an old debate: Apple's requirement that all iOS browsers use WebKit costs users measurable performance.
👎 Flop of the Week: The Next iPhone Pro Will Probably Get More Expensive
It wasn't a single headline but a whole stack: Tim Cook publicly signaled higher prices, and in parallel the rumors around the iPhone 18 Pro intensified – with a possible starting price of around 1,399 US dollars. The background is sharply risen memory prices and a new, more elaborate camera module. For buyers in Germany, this could mean a surcharge in the triple-digit euro range depending on the configuration. None of it is confirmed – but the direction of the signals has become uncomfortably clear this week.
🔭 What's Coming Next Week
With a bit of distance from the keynote, Apple is likely to roll out the second developer beta of the 27 series in the coming days – the usual rhythm of about two weeks after the first beta points to it. On top of that, further detail finds from the ongoing betas and fresh leaks about the 2026 iPhone generation are to be expected. Neither is certain yet.
💬 My Take
The outrage over more expensive iPhones falls short. Component costs are genuinely rising – memory has become drastically more expensive lately, and a camera module with a variable aperture is simply more complex than a fixed lens. A price increase is therefore not automatically greed. Still, the honest question remains how much Apple shoulders itself: the company has run margins for years that half the industry dreams of. So part of the higher costs can be absorbed without every cent landing at the checkout. How large that part turns out to be will reveal more about Apple's self-image than any keynote – and it's the truly interesting number we'll see this fall.
📚 From Our Archive
Apple Silicon: How Much RAM Do You Really Need? – The same memory shortage that is currently pushing iPhone prices up determines, on the Mac, how much RAM is really worth buying.
iPhone 2027: What Apple Is Planning for the 20th Anniversary – This week's 2027 leaks, from the camera AirPods to the next foldable, fit into the larger anniversary picture.
Money was the common thread this week – in the record figures as much as in the price worries for tomorrow.
Until next Sunday, Apfelpatient wishes you a relaxing read and a good start to the week. (Image: Shutterstock / UnImages)
