When asked about Chinese AI firm DeepSeek on today’s investor call, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained how the disruptive new model is a positive development for the iPhone maker.

Apple disclosed today that its global install base has reached a new high. However, the active device growth rate is down compared to the previous year.

Apple just reported earnings for the all-important holiday quarter. Overall it was Apple’s best quarter ever, but iPhone sales didn’t quite hit expectations, mainly because of China. CEO Tim Cook’s key takeaway though: iPhone 16 sales were strongest in countries where Apple Intelligence was available.

Not every iPhone launch outperforms launch sales of the prior model. That’s the a problem for the iPhone 16 family, however. Apple CEO Tim Cook tells Susan Li that the latest phones are selling in higher volumes than the iPhone 15 family during the same time last year. Perhaps surprisingly to some is the reason: Apple Intelligence.

Apple has released its earnings report for fiscal Q1 2025. The company reports $124.30 billion in revenue during the three-month period. That compares to $119.58 billion during the same quarter a year ago. Wall Street expected $124.13 billion in revenue. Profit from revenue includes $36.33 billion. The holiday quarter includes the bulk of iPhone 16 and Apple Watch Series 10 sales as it includes the last three months of the year.

This is Rumor Replay, a weekly column at 9to5Mac offering a quick rundown of the most recent Apple product rumors, with analysis and commentary. Today: a leaked Apple Intelligence-related memo, and iPhone 17 Pro Max and SE 4 reports. Here are this week’s Apple rumors.

More than a year has passed since Apple paused advertising on X over brand safety concerns. Soon, however, Apple may begin advertising on X again.

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Benjamin and Chance review the 2025 Apple Unity watch band, watch face and wallpaper. They talk about some compelling leaked iOS features currently in internal testing, and Apple reportedly redoubles its AI efforts. Also, T-Mobile and Starlink launch a seemingly better satellite connectivity offering, than Apple’s in-built SOS feature.

And in Happy Hour Plus, the pair debate if it is time for the Apple Watch hardware lineup to expand. Subscribe at 9to5mac.com/join.

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Apple Intelligence officially launched three months ago in iOS 18.1, and new features have steadily rolled out ever since. But the next iPhone update, iOS 18.4, is going to be especially big for new Apple Intelligence capabilities. Here are seven features and changes expected to arrive soon.

Tuesday morning, Boom Supersonic made its supersonic flight debut with its XB-1 test aircraft. The flight featured the first civil supersonic flight from a jet-powered aircraft made in America and was live-streamed for all to see. Using SpaceX’s Starlink and an iPhone, aviation enthusiasts were treated to some of the best in-flight views ever.

TSMC is a major Apple partner, producing chips for its many hundreds of millions of new devices each year. But per the company’s founder, there was once a time when Intel got a shot at iPhone chip production, and failed to impress.

Today’s best deals in Apple gear and accessories include Apple Watch Series 10 at up to $136 off alongside ongoing Black Friday pricing across the entire lineup. These offers join the $110 price drop on Apple Watch Ultra 2, but Amazon has also brought back the most affordable M4 MacBook Pro at the lowest we have tracked with $200 in savings alongside a massive $400 price drop on select M4 Max MacBook Pro configs for folks looking to score a real beast of a new laptop. Satechi is running a serious 50% sale on its desktop and workstation accessories, plus you’ll find everything else down below. 

Yesterday Meta reported its quarterly earnings, and amid sharing updates on Threads, Instagram, and yes, the metaverse, CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined an interesting new priority for this year: getting back to ‘OG Facebook.’

You don’t have to be in the Super Bowl stadium to be exposed to a lot of noise during the game. A new Apple Watch study found that noise levels across America are significantly higher than normal for about nine hours on Super Bowl Sundays.

On average, across the US, you’re likely to be exposed to noise levels between 1.5 and 3 decibels higher than usual – which is a lot worse than it sounds when it comes to potential hearing damage …

Apple is set to add PGA TOUR Pro Golf to Apple Arcade on February 6th. As someone who was obsessed with console games while I was growing up, I can’t help but get excited about this release. This is just another console-level game being added to the already growing portfolio of high-level games. Here’s what you should expect.

Netflix is by far the most dominant player in streaming, and today the company revealed its content release plans for 2025 with lots of big new shows and movies debuting. Here are the highlights.

In a major security failing, Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek exposed chat history and other sensitive data in a database accessible without any authentication.

The security researchers who discovered the issue say that the exposure included more than a million lines of log entries, which included chat history and secret keys …

Satellite video calls will be coming to Europe from later this year, following a successful demo of the tech by Vodafone in partnership with AST SpaceMobile. Rollout in the US through AT&T will follow some time later.

As with existing satellite text and voice calls, the service will operate in remote areas where no cellular coverage is available …

For the 18th year running, Apple has been named Fortune’s Most Admired Company. The rankings are based of a survey of more than 3,000 company execs across 30 countries.

While Apple’s number one position was unchanged, a new company made the top five for the first time this year …