FAA Still Looking at Digital Device Use During Takeoff and Landing
A year ago, it was revealed that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration was reexamining regulations regarding the use of digital devices like the iPad or Amazon Kindle during taxi, takeoff and landing of commercial aircraft.
Today, The New York Times reports that the industry group working with the FAA to study the issue hopes to loosen restrictions by the end of the year. However, there are still details to work out regarding what devices will be acceptable during flight and what 'airplane mode' means.
According to people who work with an industry working group that the Federal Aviation Administration set up last year to study the use of portable electronics on planes, the agency hopes to announce by the end of this year that it will relax the rules for reading devices during takeoff and landing. The change would not include cellphones.
One member of the group and an official of the F.A.A., both of whom asked for anonymity because they were not allowed to speak publicly about internal discussions, said the agency was under tremendous pressure to let people use reading devices on planes, or to provide solid scientific evidence why they cannot.
Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) promised at the end of last year to introduce legislation to force the FAA to loosen its restrictions if it doesn't choose to do so on its own. The senator was particularly frustrated because airline pilots can use iPads in the cockpit in all phases of flight, while customers are restricted to seemingly arbitrary altitude limits.
Popular Stories
2026 could be a bumper year for Apple's Mac lineup, with the company expected to announce as many as four separate MacBook launches. Rumors suggest Apple will court both ends of the consumer spectrum, with more affordable options for students and feature-rich premium lines for users that seek the highest specifications from a laptop.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
...
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth...
In a statement shared with CNBC today, Apple confirmed that Google Gemini will power the next-generation version of Siri that is slated to launch later this year.
"After careful evaluation, we determined that Google's technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and we're excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for our users," the statement...
Elon Musk today expressed concern about Apple and Google partnering on a more personalized version of Siri powered by Google's generative AI platform Gemini.
"This seems like an unreasonable concentration of power for Google, given that [they] also have Android and Chrome," wrote Musk, in a post on X.
Musk serves as CEO of xAI, the company behind Gemini competitor Grok.
It is unlikely...
Apple today seeded the second beta of iOS 26.3, nearly a month after the first beta. So far, the update includes a couple of new features for iPhones.
iOS 15.3 through iOS 18.3 were all released in late January over the years, so it is thereby likely that iOS 26.3 will be released towards the end of this month as well. The update is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer.
Below,...
The Unicode Consortium has published a draft list of emoji that could come to smartphones and other devices in the future. The list shared by Emojipedia outlines 19 emoji candidates under consideration for Emoji 18.0, which is expected to be finalized in September 2026.
Among the proposed additions are a squinting face emoji, left- and right-pointing thumb gestures, a pickle, a lighthouse, a ...
Apple and Google today announced that Google Gemini will help power not only a more personalized version of Siri, but a range of future Apple Intelligence features.
"Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology," the companies said, in a statement. "These...
iOS 26.3 will likely be released to the public later this month, but it appears that Apple is preparing to push out another software update in the interim.
Apple's software engineers have started testing iOS 26.2.1, according to the MacRumors visitor logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. The update will likely be released at some point this week or next week.
...
