Under Apple’s new EU business terms, effective Thursday, October 1, 2026, a purchase made after a customer taps a link out of an app counts toward Apple’s Store Services Commission only if it happens within 7 days of that tap. Apple’s developer support page states the window as a flat number, with no separate figure…
Mike Peterson
Mike is a technology journalist with a deep focus on Apple’s Mac ecosystem. He has spent years tracking macOS development, Apple Silicon architecture, and system-level changes across major macOS versions. His reporting covers everything from kernel-level enhancements and Swift-based APIs to hardware teardown analysis of M-series chips.
Articles by Mike Peterson
Apple's New EU App Store Terms Lock In Payment Choices for 12 Months
Apple’s new EU business terms, effective Thursday, October 1, 2026, require a developer to select its payment options for the European Union and keep that selection in place for 12 months. The choice covers Apple In-App Purchase, alternative in-app payment processing, linking out to the web, or a combination of those, and Apple’s developer support…
Apple's EU Marketplace Rules: The $1,000,000 Letter of Credit Requirement Explained
From Thursday, October 1, 2026, a company qualifies to run an alternative app marketplace in the European Union, or to distribute an app from its own website, if it meets any one of seven tests Apple lists on its developer support page. One of those seven is a letter of credit of USD 1,000,000, a…
Apple's New EU App Store Terms Take Effect October 1: The Full 26/20/15/5 Rate Card
Apple’s new business terms for apps distributed in the European Union take effect Thursday, October 1, 2026. The change replaces the Core Technology Fee with a flat 5 percent Core Technology Commission, eliminates two other fees outright, and folds everything into a single rate card of 26, 20, 15 and 5 percent depending on how…
Apple priced Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4, but not their bands or materials
Apple Watch Series 12 starts at $399 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 starts at $799, and both have full sensor lists, battery ratings and color options published. What neither watch has, on any Apple page, is a band price, a titanium or ceramic configuration price, a per-device AppleCare+ price, or a repair cost. This is…
iPhone Duo has a price but no fold-cycle rating, battery mAh, or repair cost
iPhone Duo has a press release, a full display and camera spec sheet, and a price ladder running $1,999 to $3,199. What it does not have, on any Apple page, is a fold-cycle rating, a battery capacity in mAh, a RAM figure, a repair price, screen-protector guidance, or an Apple Pencil date more specific than…
iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max went on pre-order without AppleCare+ or repair prices
Three days after Apple’s September 9 event, iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max have complete spec sheets, a full price grid and open pre-orders. What they do not have, on any Apple page we can find, is a per-device AppleCare+ price, a repair cost, or a number for the gap between the carrier-connected…
What Else Happens in October: Apple Arcade's Five Games and Two Apple TV Premieres
October carries five confirmed Apple dates that have nothing to do with a phone announcement. Five new Apple Arcade games arrive October 1. A new Apple TV series premieres October 7. A second series makes its global debut October 30, the same day iPhone Duo reaches 28 more countries and regions. iPhone Duo's own pre-order…
Apple's Calendar From September 12 to October 30: Every Confirmed Date, iPhone and Beyond
Ten confirmed Apple dates fall between today, Saturday, September 12, and Friday, October 30. Most calendars being published this week track only the iPhone. This one also carries the Mac’s return to general sale, a Supreme Court filing deadline, and the day the European Union’s new App Store rules take effect. iOS 27 and four…
Insuring $129 AirPods 5: Apple Prices Coverage for Three Devices at Once, and None for AirPods Alone
AirPods 5 cost $129, or $149 with the Wireless Charging Case. Apple has not published a per-device AppleCare+ price for either model, and the only coverage figure that exists for this launch, AppleCare One at $19.99 a month, was built to cover up to three products for that price, not one pair of earbuds. A…
What Three Years of Apple Watch Ultra 4 Ownership Adds Up To, in Apple's Own Published Numbers
Apple Watch Ultra 4 starts at $799. Apple has not published a per-device AppleCare+ price for it, so the only coverage figure that exists is AppleCare One at $19.99 a month, a plan built to be shared across up to three devices rather than priced for an Ultra 4 alone. Add three years of that…
iPhone Duo Coverage Exists, the Price Does Not: Apple Confirms AppleCare+ for Its Fold and Publishes No Number
Apple’s own newsroom release for iPhone Duo confirms that AppleCare+ and AppleCare One plans are available for the fold. What that release does not do, anywhere Apple has published, is say what AppleCare+ for iPhone Duo actually costs. The case and the folio that protect it from the outside have prices in eight countries. The…
Five Costs Buyers Assume Are Included in Apple's September 2026 Lineup, and What Apple Actually Ships
Apple published exact prices for the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Duo, Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4 and AirPods 5, down to individual cases and wrist straps. Five costs buyers routinely assume are already covered by that sticker price are not: the fast-charge adapter, per-device AppleCare+, the protection an Apple Upgrade lease is…
iPhone 18 Pro's 12 eSIM-Only Markets Still Make You Pick a Carrier at Checkout
iPhone 18 Pro has no SIM tray in 12 markets, including the United States, and carrier choice still happens at Apple’s checkout in every one of them. Removing the tray changed how a line gets onto the phone. It did not remove the moment where a buyer picks a carrier and the price moves by…
Apple Upgrade Plus AppleCare One Comes to $54.98 a Month, Above the Old Program's Own Floor
Lease an iPhone 18 Pro through Apple Upgrade and add AppleCare back the only way Apple currently prices it, AppleCare One at $19.99 a month, and the total comes to $54.98 a month. That is already above the more than $42 a month Apple charged for the iPhone Upgrade Program it retired in July, the…
iPhone 18 Pro Discounts That Cannot Be Combined: Where Apple's Own Footnotes Draw the Line
Apple offers several ways to pay less for iPhone 18 Pro or spread the cost, and its own footnotes say plainly that some of them cannot be used together. Apple Card Monthly Installments needs a specific carrier connection. Certain storefronts turn off financing entirely. And in India, one offer explicitly will not stack with another.…
Apple Upgrade's End-of-Lease Choices: Upgrade, Buy It Out, Return It, or Do Nothing for Six Months
Apple Upgrade does not end with ownership by default. When a lease term is up, Apple gives three explicit choices, upgrade to a new device, buy the current one outright with a one-time payment, or return it, and if a customer does none of the three, Apple says the lease simply converts to a month-to-month…
Apple Upgrade Covers Mac and iPad Too: $24.99 and $11.99 a Month, No AppleCare Either Way
Apple Upgrade, the Klarna-run lease that replaced the iPhone Upgrade Program in July, is not just an iPhone plan. Apple’s own footnotes list a Mac lease starting at $24.99 a month and an iPad lease starting at $11.99, both on 24 or 36 month terms, sitting alongside the iPhone and Apple Watch leases that run…
iPhone 18 Pro Trade-In: What to Do With Your Old iPhone Before September 18
Ordering iPhone 18 Pro today does not mean parting with the old iPhone today. Apple’s trade-in credit is applied instantly to the new purchase at checkout, but the device itself still has to be received and its condition verified afterward, which leaves a gap between placing the order this weekend and sending anything to Apple.…
Trade-In, Refurbished and Apple's "End-of-Life Processing" Line: What Happens to the Old Device
Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro Product Environmental Report splits the phone’s 63 kg CO2e footprint at 256GB into five stages, and the smallest by far is “end-of-life processing,” at under 1 kg. What that stage actually consists of, and how it relates to trade-in or Certified Refurbished, the two routes Apple actually offers customers for an…
Recycled Cobalt in the Battery: The Material Four of Six September Products Share
Apple states that the battery in iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, iPhone Duo, Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 uses 100 percent recycled cobalt. That single figure is the one material claim repeated identically across four of the six products launched this month. AirPods 5’s materials state a recycled-content figure…
Renewable Electricity in Manufacturing: 50, 60 and 35 Percent, and Two Products With No Figure
Apple states that 50 percent of the electricity used to manufacture iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max comes from renewable sources. iPhone Duo’s figure is higher, at 60 percent. AirPods 5’s is lower, at 35 percent. Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 carry no matching percentage in the material published…
Which Apple Accessories to Buy Now: Six Published Prices, and Four Apple Has Not Printed
Buy two accessories with this launch and wait on the rest: a $49 Clear or Silicone Case with MagSafe, and the $29 wrist strap if you want one. Those sit inside the six accessory prices Apple actually published on September 9, and everything people most want to spend money on next, the charger above all,…
What Not to Buy From Apple Right Now: Five Purchases With a Published Date Against Them
Five things in Apple’s current lineup are the wrong purchase this week, and in each case the argument is a published date or a published price rather than an opinion: AirPods 4 in either version, iPhone Air at $1,099, iPhone 16 at $799, any coverage decision made before Monday, and an Apple Watch pre-order placed…