In the latest iOS 16.1 beta, Apple has added a new toggle to the App Store's settings that allows apps to automatically begin downloading their in-app content after they're downloaded and before a user launches them for the first time.
"Automatically run apps in the background to download content before you first launch them," the description of the toggle says. With the new option enabled, after a user installs an app from the App Store, it'll automatically begin running in the background to download their in-app content so that when the user opens the app for the first time, it's ready to go.
The new toggle was added in iOS 16.1 beta 3 and macOS Ventura beta 9. Also, in the latest macOS Ventura beta, Apple has a new dynamic version of its Ventura marketing wallpaper.
You'd think things would be slowing down heading into the holidays, but this week saw a whirlwind of Apple leaks and rumors while Apple started its next cycle of betas following last week's release of iOS 26.2 and related updates.
This week also saw the release of a new Apple Music integration with ChatGPT, so read on below for all the details on this week's biggest stories!
Top Stories
i...
Monday December 22, 2025 11:30 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple hasn't updated the Apple TV 4K since 2022, and 2025 was supposed to be the year that we got a refresh. There were rumors suggesting Apple would release the new Apple TV before the end of 2025, but it looks like that's not going to happen now.
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Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said several times across 2024 and 2025 that Apple would...
Tuesday December 16, 2025 8:44 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Next year's iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max will be equipped with under-screen Face ID, and the front camera will be moved to the top-left corner of the screen, according to a new report from The Information's Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu.
As a result of these changes, the report said the iPhone 18 Pro models will not have a pill-shaped Dynamic Island cutout at the top of the screen....
Friday December 19, 2025 10:37 am PST by Juli Clover
Since the beginning of December, Apple has been pushing iPhone users who opted to stay on iOS 18 to install iOS 26 instead. Apple started by making the iOS 18 upgrades less visible, and has now transitioned to making new iOS 18 updates unavailable on any device capable of running iOS 26.
If you have an iPhone 11 or later, Apple is no longer offering new versions of iOS 18, even though there...
Apple is significantly increasing its reliance on Samsung for iPhone memory as component prices surge, according to The Korea Economic Daily.
Apple is said to be expanding the share of iPhone memory it sources from Samsung due to rapidly rising memory prices. The shift is expected to result in Samsung supplying roughly 60% to 70% of the low-power DRAM used in the iPhone 17, compared with a...
Tuesday December 16, 2025 4:42 pm PST by Juli Clover
There has been a whirlwind of rumors over the last few days, sourced from leaked internal software designed for the iPhone and the Mac, and news sites like The Information. Below, we have a quick recap of everything we've heard this week, which serves as a guide to Apple's product plans in 2026 and beyond.
We've organized the info by likely release date, though there are some products that...
Monday December 22, 2025 7:47 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Italy's Competition Authority (AGCM) has imposed a €98.6 million ($116 million) fine on Apple over its App Tracking Transparency feature.
Since the release of iOS 14.5 in April 2021, Apple has required apps to ask for permission before tracking a user's activity across other apps and websites for personalized advertising, as part of a feature named App Tracking Transparency. If a user...
I can't recall the last time an app required an additional download after installing. Does anyone have any examples? The only ones I can think of are games.
This is a sneaky way for us to enable Background App Refresh for new apps, considering most people turned BAR off a long time ago after realizing we only use it to track users and it provides the user nothing.
Wow, those mobile games will definitely use this feature EXTENSIVELY after every month‘s maintenance. Aside from that, I dunno who will benefit too much from it. Just did a quick test and Genshin took advantage of that very well. O_O
I can't recall the last time an app required an additional download after installing. Does anyone have any examples? The only ones I can think of are games.
Content streaming apps. One of the first things I've had to do with a new phone is launch Spotify and let it start downloading the many GB of music I've saved to play offline. Same would apply to stuff like HBO Max that also lets you locally cache content for offline use. Could maybe apply to something like Dropbox to preload pinned files.
But yeah, even considering the above it's not like I'm getting a new phone every week and need to keep doing this. Whatever, might save some time at some point ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
