Overview
- Apple confirmed an in‑person “Apple Experience” for March 4 across New York, London and Shanghai, with coverage indicating press releases earlier that week will tee up products for hands‑on demos.
- iOS 26.4 is now in public beta, introducing Apple Music’s AI‑driven Playlist Playground to build custom mixes from text prompts and refreshed full‑screen artwork.
- Apple Podcasts gains video episodes via HLS with seamless audio‑video switching, offline downloads, dynamic video ad insertion, and initial support from Acast, ART19, Omny Studio and SiriusXM.
- CarPlay adds parked‑only video playback, including Apple TV, and for the first time access to third‑party AI services such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.
- Security and messaging changes include Stolen Device Protection enabled by default and limited testing of end‑to‑end encrypted RCS, while reports point to expected early‑March hardware reveals like a low‑cost colorful MacBook and iPhone 17e and to ongoing work on new AI wearables.