Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers the keynote address during the 2020 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California, June 22, 2020.
Brooks Kraft | Apple, Inc. | via Reuters
Apple released an AI-powered journal app for iPhones on Monday as part of its iOS 17.2 update.
The Journal app, which was first announced back in June, uses Apple’s Siri to intelligently suggest topics to journal about. It might, for example, prompt you to write about music you were listening to, or document appointments you had that day and workouts you completed.
The Journal app is one example of how Apple continues to invest in new iPhone features on a yearly basis to protect its iPhone franchise from competition from Google’s Android and other phone makers.
The iPhone is still the most important product Apple makes, accounting for $205 billion in sales in its fiscal 2023, or about 52% of the company’s overall sales. The more that Apple adds features that are used on a daily basis — like its credit card, or its app store, or its iMessage service — the harder it is for most users to switch to a competing phone brand or operating system.
The Journal app also highlights Apple’s approach to AI. Apple’s artificial intelligence software, like what’s powering the Journal app, runs on the device itself, not on a server in the cloud, which has privacy advantages over Google’s and Microsoft’s internet-based approach, especially for sensitive information like health data or travel plans. Apple also doesn’t highlight AI as a key feature in its marketing — it prefers the more academic phrase “machine learning.”
How the Journal app works
Apple’s new Journal app uses machine learning to detect important events users might want to write about.
Screenshot/CNBC
Apple’s Journal app is simple. I’ve been testing it on a beta version of iOS for a month. When you open the app up — you can lock its contents with Apple’s FaceID — you’re brought to a screen with a list of your entries and a single “+” button.
Pressing the plus button lets you start a new entry. At first, it looks like a standard text entry box, like in Apple’s Notes. You can type in some thoughts, add a photo, photos you’ve taken, an audio recording, or drop in a Apple Maps location of where you’ve been. The app automatically timestamps the post.
After you’ve added several entries, the front page of the app fills up with your previous entries and you can browse and edit old posts. You can filter your old entries by those that include a photo, or an activity, or those that are tagged with a certain place. Journal entries aren’t published anywhere, just stored inside your individual Journal app.
Where the machine learning magic appears is under the magic wand icon, or the “moments menu.” When you tap the magic wand icon, it suggests things to write about based on what it knows from your phone, such as the music you were listening to or where you were.
For example, when I pressed the moments tab on Monday, it suggested I write about a recent vacation — bringing up a map of where I was, hikes I did while I was on the trip, music I listened to, and photos I took when I was there. For one entry, I simply recorded an audio file of the waves crashing, so I could return to the moment later. (However, it didn’t realize that I had already fully documented that vacation inside the Journal app.)
The Journal app’s push notifications can also prompt the user. It often sends a push notification when it detects that you’ve done an activity that you might want to reflect on. For example, I recently had to rush to catch a ferry. My watch noted a walking workout, and I was listening to music at the time. Journaling workouts could be very useful for people who are training for marathons or other athletic achievements.
The Journal app also sent me notifications asking whether I wanted to write about the experience. Some days, notifications sent by the app simply asks you to reflect on your day. Apple also includes several prompts designed to spur reflection: “Make an audio recording of your surroundings. Write about what you notice.”
The app can also be social, suggesting to journal about activities with others when it detects contacts nearby.
Apple’s Journal app is basic right now. Nothing it does besides suggestions couldn’t be done in an old-fashioned paper journal, or even a page inside Apple’s Notes app. But the suggestions and integration with Apple’s other services set it apart from more low-tech approaches, and highlight how Apple’s integration of hardware and software means that it can learn what’s important in your life without collecting your data on its servers.
Apple is even making its machine learning model that guesses what might be important to the user available to other apps through a programming interface, meaning that other apps could benefit from Apple’s AI.
Apple needs to continue to improve the Journal app in order to find a place in most people’s everyday routines. It would be better if it could automatically fill out more of an entry, especially ones based on photos or other activities. For now, there’s no export function, which would enable the Journal app to become a more useful place to collect thoughts and ideas that could one day be published.
How to get the Journal app on your iPhone.
The journal app is available in iOS 17.2, which can be downloaded on modern iPhones now. Here’s how to get it:
Open Settings.
Tap General
Choose Software Update.
You may notice some other new features in iOS 17.2. The update also includes the ability to change the default alert sound, sticker reactions in iMessage, and a machine learning feature that blurs photos and other content sent to you that may include nudity.
CEO of Supermicro Charles Liang speaks during the Reuters NEXT conference in New York City, U.S., December 10, 2024.
Mike Segar | Reuters
PARIS — Super Micro plans to increase its investment in Europe, including ramping up manufacturing of its AI servers in the region, CEO Charles Liang told CNBC in an interview that aired on Wednesday.
The company sells servers which are packed with Nvidia chips and are key for training and implementing huge AI models. It has manufacturing facilities in the Netherlands, but could expand to other places.
“But because the demand in Europe is growing very fast, so I already decided, indeed, [there’s] already a plan to invest more in Europe, including manufacturing,” Liang told CNBC at the Raise Summit in Paris, France.
“The demand is global, and the demand will continue to improve in [the] next many years,” Liang added.
Liang’s comments come less than a month after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited various parts of Europe, signing infrastructure deals and urging the region to ramp up its computing capacity.
Growth to be ‘strong’
Super Micro rode the growth wave after OpenAI’s ChatGPT boom boosted demand for Nvidia’s chips, which underpin big AI models. The server maker’s stock hit a record high in March 2024. However, the stock is around 60% off that all-time high over concerns about its accounting and financial reporting. But the company in February filed its delayed financial report for its 2024 fiscal year, assuaging those fears.
In May, the company reported weaker-than-expected guidance for the current quarter, raising concerns about demand for its product.
However, Liang dismissed those fears. “Our growth rate continues to be strong, because we continue to grow our fundamental technology, and we [are] also expanding our business scope,” Liang said.
“So the room … to grow will be still very tremendous, very big.”
Jeff Williams, chief operating officer of Apple Inc., during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, US, on Monday, June 9, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Apple said on Tuesday that Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, a 27-year company veteran, will be retiring later this year.
Current operations leader Sabih Khan will take over much of the COO role later this month, Apple said in a press release. For his remaining time with the comapny, Williams will continue to head up Apple’s design team, Apple Watch, and health initiatives, reporting to CEO Tim Cook.
Williams becomes the latestlongtime Apple executive to step down as key employees, who were active in the company’s hyper-growth years, reach retirement age. Williams, 62, previously headed Apple’s formidable operations division, which is in charge of manufacturing millions of complicated devices like iPhones, while keeping costs down.
He also led important teams inside Apple, including the company’s fabled industrial design team, after longtime leader Jony Ive retired in 2019. When Williams retires, Apple’s design team will report to CEO Tim Cook, Apple said.
“He’s helped to create one of the most respected global supply chains in the world; launched Apple Watch and overseen its development; architected Apple’s health strategy; and led our world class team of designers with great wisdom, heart, and dedication,” Cook said in the statement.
Williams said he plans to spend more time with friends and family.
“June marked my 27th anniversary with Apple, and my 40th in the industry,” Williams said in the release.
Williams is leaving Apple at a time when its famous supply chain is under significant pressure, as the U.S. imposes tariffs on many of the countries where Apple sources its devices, and White House officials publicly pressure Apple to move more production to the U.S.
Khan was added to Apple’s executive team in 2019, taking an executive vice president title. Apple said on Tuesday that he will lead supply chain, product quality, planning, procurement, and fulfillment at Apple.
The operations leader joined Apple’s procurement group in 1995, and before that worked as an engineer and technical leader at GE Plastics. He has a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York.
Khan has worked closely with Cook. Once, during a meeting when Cook said that a manufacturing problem was “really bad,” Khan stood up and drove to the airport, and immediately booked a flight to China to fix it, according to an anecdote published in Fortune.
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of SpaceX and Tesla, attends the Viva Technology conference at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, June 16, 2023.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Tesla CEO Elon Musk told Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives to “Shut up” on Tuesday after the analyst offered three recommendations to the electric vehicle company’s board in a post on X.
Ives has been one of the most bullish Tesla observers on Wall Street. With a $500 price target on the stock, he has the highest projection of any analyst tracked by FactSet.
But on Tuesday, Ives took to X with critical remarks about Musk’s political activity after the world’s richest person said over the weekend that he was creating a new political party called the America Party to challenge Republican candidates who voted for the spending bill that was backed by President Donald Trump.
Ives’ post followed a nearly 7% slide in Tesla’s stock Monday, which wiped out $68 billion in market cap. Ives called for Tesla’s board to create a new pay package for Musk that would get him 25% voting control and clear a path to merge with xAI, establish “guardrails” for how much time Musk has to spend at Tesla, and provide “oversight on political endeavors.”
Ives published a lengthier note with other analysts from his firm headlined, “The Tesla board MUST Act and Create Ground Rules For Musk; Soap Opera Must End.” The analysts said that Musk’s launching of a new political party created a “tipping point in the Tesla story,” necessitating action by the company’s board to rein in the CEO.
Still, Wedbush maintained its price target and its buy recommendation on the stock.
“Shut up, Dan,” Musk wrote in response on X, even though the first suggestion would hand the CEO the voting control he has long sought at Tesla.
In an email to CNBC, Ives wrote, “Elon has his opinion and I get it, but we stand by what the right course of action is for the Board.”
Musk’s historic 2018 CEO pay package, which had been worth around $56 billion and has since gone up in value, was voided last year by the Delaware Court of Chancery. Judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled that Tesla’s board members had lacked independence from Musk and failed to properly negotiate at arm’s length with the CEO.
Tesla has appealed that case to the Delaware state Supreme Court and is trying to determine what Musk’s next pay package should entail.
Ives isn’t the only Tesla bull to criticize Musk’s continued political activism.
Analysts at William Blair downgraded the stock to the equivalent of a hold from a buy on Monday, because of Musk’s political plans and rhetoric as well as the negative impacts that the spending bill passed by Congress could have on Tesla’s margins and EV sales.
“We expect that investors are growing tired of the distraction at a point when the business needs Musk’s attention the most and only see downside from his dip back into politics,” the analysts wrote. “We would prefer this effort to be channeled towards the robotaxi rollout at this critical juncture.”
Trump supporter James Fishback, CEO of hedge fund Azoria Partners, said Saturday that his firm postponed the listing of an exchange-traded fund, the Azoria Tesla Convexity ETF, that would invest in the EV company’s shares and options. He began his post on X saying, “Elon has gone too far.”
“I encourage the Board to meet immediately and ask Elon to clarify his political ambitions and evaluate whether they are compatible with his full-time obligations to Tesla as CEO,” Fishback wrote.
Musk said Saturday that he has formed the America Party, which he claimed will give Americans “back your freedom.” He hasn’t shared formal details, including where the party may be registered, how much funding he will provide for it and which candidates he will back.
Tesla’s stock is now down about 25% this year, badly underperforming U.S. indexes and by far the worst performance among tech’s megacaps.
Musk spent much of the first half of the year working with the Trump administration and leading an effort to massively downsize the federal government. His official work with the administration wrapped up at the end of May, and his exit preceded a public spat between Musk and Trump over the spending bill and other matters.
Musk, Tesla’s board chair Robyn Denholm and investor relations representative Travis Axelrod didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.