Apple CEO Tim Cook (L) looks at brand new Apple products during an Apple event on September 12, 2023 in Cupertino, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Apple released iOS 17 for iPhones on Monday. It’s Apple’s biggest software update of the year, and is available for anyone with an iPhone from 2018 or later.
Apple releases a big update to the iPhone’s operating system every year alongside new iPhones, and you don’t necessarily need to buy a new device to get access to the latest software.
This year’s update has a lot of improvements to some of the most-used apps, including the Phone app, Messages, and Safari.
There are a lot of changes, but here are some of the highlights you need to know about:
Apple’s Contact Posters in iOS 17 will change the way your phone looks when you recieve a call.
Apple
Contact posters. One of the biggest changes will be a new feature that allows iPhone users to choose a picture and font to change how they appear when they call other people’s iPhones. With iOS 17, users can create your own “contact poster” in a very similar way to how users can customize their lockscreen.
Better autocorrect. Apple’s autocorrect has been improved with a transformer-based language model, a relative of the technology that is used in ChatGPT. Users can also automatically finish their sentences using autocorrect by tapping the space bar if there’s a suggestion.
Apple SOS Assistance.
Source: Apple Inc.
Roadside assistance. The feature will let users with recent phones call AAA in the U.S. through satellites, if there’s no cell service. It requires a phone with Apple’s satellite service called SOS, so will only work on last year’s iPhone 14 or this year’s iPhone 15.
New iMessage interface. Apple’s text messaging interface has gotten a remodel, moving hidden apps such as stickers or the camera to a menu on the left-hand side of the screen, as opposed to above the keyboard. The Messages app can now also automatically transcribe short audio messages. Searching your old texts is also significantly improved.
Kif Leswing/CNBC
Stickers. While the iPhone has had stickers — little images you can place on top of chats — for a few years now, in iOS 17, Apple has put all of the sticker features in a new piece of software that can be accessed through the new iMessage interface. The new “experience,” as Apple calls it, can use machine learning to automatically cut subjects — like your cat’s face — out of photos to make new stickers from them.
Automatic “got home safe” notifications. A feature called Check In can send automatic notifications to friends and family based on if you got home safely or if you’ve tapped a button after a period of time.
StandBy Mode in iOS 17
Todd Haselton | CNBC
Standby dock mode. iPhones charging horizontally on a magnetic MagSafe dock now turn into a sort of dashboard that can display the time, your photos, upcoming appointments, information in Widgets, or even a “Live Activity” such as a tracker for your Uber Eats delivery.
Offline maps. Users can now save parts of Apple Maps for offline in case they don’t have internet access, like when driving to a remote location. It’s also handy to save your metropolitan area in your phone for faster and more reliable routing.
Drop the “hey.” Just “Siri.” It’s cleaner. Apple’s voice assistant no longer requires a “hey” in front of “Siri.”
Apple Voicemail transcription.
Source: Apple
Live voicemails. Now, when users receive a call, they can send it directly to voicemail with a button on the iPhone’s lock screen. If the caller leaves a voicemail, it will be transcribed in real time, allowing the user to decide if it’s something they might want to pick up, after all.
Better two-factor authentication. Users who use both Apple’s Mail app and the Safari browser will find an extremely handy feature: When a log-in code is sent to your email, it will automatically show up above the keyboard. Also, codes sent via text message are now automatically deleted after you’ve input them, saving you from seeing a bunch of unread-message notifications that are actually just log-in codes.
Password-protected private browsing. Apple’s on-phone private browsing mode, which doesn’t save web history, now can be password-protected and unlocked with Apple’s Face ID.
A new business card. Trading information with other iPhone users is now as simple as bumping two iPhones together. Apple’s AirDrop feature will trade specific phone numbers, contact posters, or email addresses with the user’s permission.
How to install iOS 17 on your iPhone
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap “General.”
Tap “Software Update.” You may have a drop-down menu directly underneath to pick iOS 17 or a beta version, if you’ve tried pre-release software. Your iPhone will automatically restart once it’s ready.
Artificial intelligence chipmaker Cerebras Systems said on Friday that it’s withdrawing plans for an IPO, days after announcing that it raised over $1 billion in a fundraising round.
In a filing with the SEC, Cerebras said it does not intend to conduct a proposed offering “at this time,” but didn’t provide a reason. A spokesperson told CNBC on Friday that the company still hopes to go public as soon as possible.
Cerebras filed for an IPO just over a year ago, as it was ramping up to take on Nvidia in an effort to create processors for running generative AI models. The filing revealed a heavy reliance on a single customer in the United Arab Emirates, Microsoft-backed G42, which is also a Cerebras investor.
In its prospectus, Cerebras said it had given voluntary notice to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States about selling shares to G42. In March, the company announced that the committee had provided clearance.
Since its initial filing to go public on the Nasdaq, Cerebras has shifted its focus away from selling systems and more toward providing a cloud service for accepting incoming queries to models that use its chips underneath.
The announced withdrawal comes three days into a U.S. government shutdown that’s left agencies like the SEC operating with a small staff. In a plan for a shutdown published in August, the SEC said its electronic system EDGAR “is operated pursuant to a contract and thus will remain fully functional as long as funding for the contractor remains available through permitted means.”
On Tuesday, Cerebras said it had raised $1.1 billion at a valuation of $8.1 billion in a private funding round. At the time, CEO Andrew Feldman said that the company still wanted to go public, rather than continue to raise venture capital.
“I don’t think this is an indication of a preference for one or the other,” he told CNBC in an interview. “I think we have tremendous opportunities in front of us, and I think it’s good practice, when you have enormous opportunities, not to let them fall by the wayside for lack of capital.”
Feldman thought the original prospectus from last year was out of date, especially considering developments in AI, the spokesperson said on Friday.
Well heeled technology companies have been quickly signing up for additional infrastructure to handle demand. On Tuesday CoreWeave, which rents out Nvidia chips through a cloud service, said it had signed a $14.2 billion agreement with Meta. ChatGPT operator OpenAI said last week that it had committed to spending $300 billion on cloud services from Oracle.
The government shutdown did not factor into Cerebras’ decision, the spokesperson said.
An employee arranges a salad dressing display at an Amazon Fresh grocery store on December 12, 2024 in Federal Way, Washington.
David Ryder | Getty Images
Amazon is closing four more Fresh supermarkets in Southern California as the e-commerce giant continues to focus its grocery strategy around Whole Foods and delivery.
The closures will take place in the coming weeks, Amazon confirmed to CNBC. They follow the shuttering of four other U.S. locations in recent months, in Washington, Virginia, New York and a Los Angeles suburb.
“Certain locations work better than others, and after an assessment, we’ve made the decision to close these Amazon Fresh locations,” Amazon spokesperson Griffin Buch said in a statement. “We’re working closely with affected employees to help them find new roles within Amazon wherever possible.”
At one Fresh supermarket in La Verne, California, employees were told to gather for an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, according to an internal message viewed by CNBC. They learned at the meeting that the store would close in mid-November, and that employees would receive a severance package, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the details were confidential.
The other three stores that are closing are in cities of Mission Viejo, La Habra and Whittier.
Last week, Amazon said it intends to close 14 Fresh grocery stores in the U.K. and convert its five other locations there into Whole Foods markets.
Amazon said it regularly evaluates its store portfolio, which can lead to opening, reopening, relocating or closing certain locations. In the U.S., the company has more than 60 remaining Fresh stores. Last year, the company removed its “Just Walk Out” cashierless technology from the stores. It’s also been culling its footprint of Go cashierless convenience stores.
Amazon has been determined to become a major grocery player for nearly two decades. The company launched Amazon Fresh in 2007, then a pilot project for fresh food delivery, before acquiring upscale chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, its biggest purchase on record.
Amazon debuted its Fresh grocery chain in 2020, with an eye toward mass-market shoppers. The rollout has been turbulent since its early days.
The company opened a flurry of Fresh locations by 2022, but the expansion plans ran into CEO Andy Jassy’s widespread cost-cutting efforts as the company reckoned with the impact of rising interest rates and soaring inflation. In 2023, Amazon announced it would shut some Fresh stores and halt further openings temporarily as it evaluated how to make the chain stand out for shoppers.
While it’s closing Fresh stores, Amazon continues to “innovate and invest in making grocery shopping easier, faster, and more affordable,” Buch said. The company still maintains 500 Whole Foods locations and has opened mini “daily shop” Whole Foods stores in New York City.
On Wednesday, Amazon also launched a new “price-conscious” grocery brand that will be offered online and in its physical stores. And last month, Amazon expanded same-day delivery of fresh foods to more pockets of the U.S.
Jassy and other company executives have touted the success of sales of “everyday essentials” within its online grocery business, which refers to items such as canned goods, paper towels, dish soap and snacks. Jassy told investors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May that he remains “bullish” on grocery, calling it a “significant business” for Amazon.
Inside Google’s quantum computing lab in Santa Barbara, California.
CNBC
Quantum computing stocks are wrapping up a big week of double-digit gains.
Shares of Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing have surged more than 20%. Rigetti and D-Wave Quantum have more than doubled and tripled, respectively, since the start of the year. Arqit Quantum skyrocketed more than 32% this week.
The jump in shares followed a wave of positive news in the quantum space.
Rigetti said it had purchase orders totalling $5.7 million for two of its 9-qubit Novera quantum computing systems. The owner of drugmaker Novo Nordisk and the Danish government also invested 300 million euros in a quantum venture fund.
In a blog post earlier this week, Nvidia also highlighted accelerated computing, which it argues can make “quantum computing breakthroughs of today and tomorrow possible.”