August is the so-called ‘silly season’, and it shows, with just two main stories, but lots more detail than usual in the other regular segments. Starting as usual with feedback and followups the most notable developments are in the secret UK encryption case and the Apple-Epic saga, there are some more regulatory problems for Apple, just one legal story, then the usual HR news before checking in on Apple’s services and original content where there is a very notable price change to discuss. The two main stories are Tim Cook’s ‘Made in America’ charm offensive, and Apple’s US blood oxygen workaround. As usual the show finish with a few smaller stories that made the month’s news.

You’ll find detailed show notes below the fold, and if you enjoy this free show, please consider clicking on the donate button at the top of the left side bar – the show is free for you to listen to, but not for Bart to Produce!

Quick updates to long-running stories the show continues to track, and to stories covered in recent shows.

The UK's super-secret case against Apple got significantly more confusing in August:

August was a relatively quiet month in the Apple -v- Epic saga:

An Australian court has ruled that Apple & Google's app stores are anti-competitive, but there are no details yet of what exactly that will mean — appleinsider.com/…

Nothing substantial happened in the US case, just some ground work preparing for what ever remaining court dates there will be:

August was a relatively quiet month in Trump Tariff news:

Some more details have emerged about how Japan's new Mobile Software Competition Act (MSCA) will affect Apple, as well as the App Store changes discussed last month, they will also have to offer an EU-like browser ballot — www.cultofmac.com/…

August was a good month for Apple in India:

When the UK passed it's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC) that trigged an investigation into Apple and Google by the country's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to determine if those companies have Strategic Market Status, who have now found that Apple & Google do indeed have that status, bringing them under tighter regulations similar to Gatekeeper status under the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) — www.macobserver.com/…

Google Allowed to Keep Chrome and Continue Paying Apple $20 Billion for Search Placement — tidbits.com/…

German Court Blocks Apple’s Carbon Neutral Claims for Apple Watch — www.macobserver.com/… (purely on a technicality regarding a specific off-set, not on any broad principle)

Apple App Store Faces Formal Antitrust Investigation in Colombia — www.macobserver.com/…

France's unnecessary iPhone 12 RF patch is spreading across Europe — appleinsider.com/…

Elon Musk baselessly suing Apple for Grok's position on the App Store — appleinsider.com/…

The best description of the legal arguments being made — www.macobserver.com/…

Elon Musk's antitrust claims refuted by Apple citing curation for safe discovery — appleinsider.com/…

Opinion: Musk is wrong and has only influence on his side in a childish App Store spat — appleinsider.com/…

Opinion: Elon Musk sues Apple and OpenAI, revealing his panic over OpenAI dominance — arstechnica.com/…

At this point appearing to be genuinely panicked about OpenAI's insurmountable lead in the chatbot market, Musk has specifically alleged that an agreement integrating ChatGPT into the iOS violated antitrust and unfair competition laws. Allegedly, the conspiracy is designed to protect Apple's smartphone monopoly and block out AI rivals to lock in OpenAI's dominance in the chatbot market.

AI remains the focus of Apple's HR news:

Apple starts hiring AI engineers for a new Answers, Knowledge and Information team — appleinsider.com/…

Apple Loses Sixth AI Leader to Meta’s Superintelligence Push — www.macobserver.com/… (Frank Chu who oversaw AI infrastructure, training & search)

Four more employees depart Apple, join other AI efforts — appleinsider.com/…

Related: Apple machine learning privacy workshop talks help promote AI security — appleinsider.com/…

Related: Xcode 26 beta 7 adds GPT-5 & Claude account support — appleinsider.com/…

Apple TV+ senior executive Chris Parnell poached by Paramount — appleinsider.com/… (was a senior creative executive working on original content)

Apple denies its Fitness chief is bullying his team as an employee sues — appleinsider.com/…

Apple Sues Ex-Employee for Stealing Apple Watch Secrets for Oppo — www.macobserver.com/…

Apple TV+:

Apple have increased the monthly cost of a stand-alone AppleTV+ subscription by 30% ( $9.99 → $12.99), the first price-rise in two years — www.cultofmac.com/…

The change is not for everyone, but for "new customers in the U.S. and select international markets as of today" — tvline.com/…

Note that the annual price remains the same, as Gruber reports, this strongly encourages annual sign-ups over monthly ones — daringfireball.net/…

The usual rule-of-thumb for subscriptions of any sort seems to be to charge 10× the monthly rate for an annual subscription. That’s exactly where the TV+ month/annual prices were before today. Now, the annual subscription price isn’t just a little bit cheaper than 12× the monthly price ($156), but a lot cheaper.

Also note Apple One has also not changed price, so is now an even better offering — www.cultofmac.com/…

'F1: the Movie' is now available to rent or buy — appleinsider.com/… (next release will be streaming on Apple TV+)

'Ted Lasso' now flies the friendly skies on United's in-flight entertainment system — appleinsider.com/… (along with Severance, Shrinking, Slow Horses & Silo)

Apple TV+ show 'Trying' will be free on the BBC soon — appleinsider.com/… (first Apple show to get syndicated this way, nice way to keep monetising the growing back-catalogue)

**Apple Music:

Apple Music migration tool will finally help U.S. Spotify users switch — appleinsider.com/… ( was only available in Australia & New Zealand)

An Apple Support document update spotted by MacRumors says the migration tool is now available in the UK, Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, and Mexico, as well as Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.

Apple partners with TuneIn to stream radio stations to 75 million users — www.cultofmac.com/…

Apple Arcade adds fun new content, including NFL Retro Bowl ’26, Jeopardy! Daily, and an exciting update to Hello Kitty Island Adventure — Apple PR

Apple Maps now helps cyclists navigate Hong Kong and Taiwan streets — appleinsider.com/…

Apple Wallet ID Support Expands to Montana — www.macobserver.com/…

Apple really focused on it's made in American push in August:

Apple started the month with a big PR event in the White House announcing an additional $100Bn investment in US manufacturing — www.macstories.net/…

$500Bn → $600Bn over the next 4 years

Additional investments are into Apple's American Manufacturing Program which covers 10 US-based manufacturers (Amkor, Applied Materials, Broadcom, Coherent, Corning, GlobalFoundries, GlobalWafers America AKA GWA, Samsung, Texas Instruments AKA TI)

The first investment to be detailed is in Corning, which will now make the glass for US-bound iPhone and Apple Watch screens — www.cultofmac.com/…

During the event President Trump announced a plan to announce a 100% tariff on semiconductor imports, but said companies like Apple who invest in the US would be exempt — appleinsider.com/…

Tim Cook expertly buttered up President Trump by presenting him with a huge gaudy gold and glass trophy (an engraved Corning Gorilla Glass disk set in a gold base made from 24K Utah gold) — appleinsider.com/…

The trophy, and the private conversations the whole spectacle enabled seem to have worked, at least for now, Tim Cook has succeeded in getting President Trump understand that iPhone final assembly can't just be moved to the US, and that it's better for Apple to source high-value components from US manufacturers instead — appleinsider.com/…

"He makes many of the components here, and we've been talking about it, and the whole thing is set up at other places, and it's been there for a long time, so in terms of cost and all [on Apple's difficulties bringing final assembly to the United States]. But I think we may incentivize him enough that one day he'll be bringing that — but he brings most of the stuff — look, he's not making this kind of an investment anywhere else in the world, not even close." — Trump at the White House event where he was presented with his glass and gold trophy

Tip of the Hat for the best Headline: Trump wanted a US-made iPhone. Apple gave him a gold statue. — arstechnica.com/…

Opinion: Gold, Frankincense, and Silicon — daringfireball.net/… (I agree with Gruber's take)

Faulting Cook for playing ball and kissing Trump’s ring (among other things) is like faulting a local business for paying into a protection racket — one in which the cops are complicit, and the whole scam exists at the behest of a crooked mayor. Moral rectitude can feel good, but not so much when the cops are burning your store to the ground. There is no authority to appeal to for help when the highest office in the country is running the protection racket.

Apple Partners with Samsung to Launch New US Based Chip Technology — www.macobserver.com/… (likely camera sensors, but no details announced)

Apple chips to be made at newly opened Texas Instruments plant — appleinsider.com/…

The good-will and buttering-up continued right to the end of the month with Tim Cook attending a White House dinner where both he and Trump spoke — appleinsider.com/…

"I want to thank you for setting the tone such that we could make a major investment in the United States and have some key manufacturing advanced manufacturing here. … I think that says a lot about your focus and your leadership and your focus on innovation, I also want to thank you for helping American companies around the world. This is a very key, key thing. … We're all, we are all different in some ways, but we all believe in the power of technology to improve people's lives, and that is the thing that binds us all together." — Tim Cook

Apple Watch getting blood oxygen sensor back after 18 month absence — appleinsider.com/… ( Apple PR)

Apple found a loop-hole! Masimo's patent covers devices that have the sensors, display, and processing on the device, so Apple is only using the sensor on US Apple watches now, and sending the raw readings to the paired iPhone for both processing and display (within the Health app) — daringfireball.net/…

Masimo responds by suing US Customs & Border Patrol (CBP) — www.macobserver.com/… & appleinsider.com/…

TMO: The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, claims CBP violated the Administrative Procedure Act and due process protections when it issued an internal advice ruling on August 1. According to Masimo, the agency overturned its own January decision without notifying the company or allowing it to respond.

An insightful analysis from John Gruber: daringfireball.net/…

The CBP’s investigation centered around whether the Masimo patents were “limiting” — which seems to mean a device that does all these things: the sensors, the computation of results, and the display of results. Masimo argued that the patents weren’t limiting, and apparently made no argument for how the import ban on Apple Watches should stand if the patents were found by CBP to be limiting. The CBP asked the International Trade Commission — the outfit that instituted the import ban — whether they considered the Masimo patents to be limiting, and the ITC responded yes, they did, that that was the entire basis of the import ban.

CPB have filed a motion to dismiss the Masimo case against them — www.macobserver.com/…

The government maintains that Masimo must first take its objections to the International Trade Commission. If the ITC rules against Masimo, the company can appeal to the Federal Circuit. Customs said Masimo cannot sidestep this process by filing directly in district court.

Apple’s $2.5B Housing Plan Shows More Progress Than Meta, Google — www.macobserver.com/…

Six years after the three companies announced large-scale commitments, Apple has spent more than $1.6 billion of its $2.5 billion plan, funding the creation or preservation of over 10,000 affordable housing units, offering financial help to at-risk residents, and supporting first-time homebuyers.

Apple brings its Self Service Repair program to Canada — appleinsider.com/… (now 34 countries & 25 languages)

Beats Solo 4 launches special Ruby Red JENNIE edition — appleinsider.com/…

Apple's September event will be held at 13:00 EST on the 9th of September and is titled Awe Dropping — arstechnica.com/…

Note: When the textual description of a link is part of the link it is the title of the page being linked to, when the text describing a link is not part of the link it is a description written by Bart.