This week, Google launches the Pixel 11 Pro, while Apple launches their entire product roadmap (by accident).
Apple Leaked Their Entire Roadmap...
In a year that has already seen the Tata Electronics ransomware breach, the iPhone 18 Pro drop-test videos, and the Jon Prosser lawsuit, you'd think Apple's security situation couldn't get any worse. And then, on Monday, Apple managed to top the lot by leaking its entire upcoming product lineup itself.
The macOS Tahoe 26.7 Release Candidate, a routine software update seeded to developers ahead of a public release, was found to contain references to more than 10 unreleased Apple products. MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris dug into the code and found hardware identifiers for the foldable iPhone Ultra (V68), the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max (V63 and V64), the standard iPhone 18 (V67), the iPhone Air 2 (V62), an all-new smart home hub (J490 and J491), a new HomePod mini, a next-generation Apple TV with an upgraded Siri Remote, four OLED MacBook Pro models with touchscreens, an OLED iPad mini, a new iMac, a new Vision Pro, and camera-equipped AirPods.
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That last one came with a bonus. Buried in the code was a 13-second demo video showing exactly how the camera AirPods would work. In the clip, a man wearing AirPods picks up a book and a voiceover says: "With Visual Intelligence, your world becomes savable. See something you like? Just ask me to save it for later." That's not a code reference. That's not a model number. That's a finished marketing asset sitting inside a software update that went out to thousands of developers.
Let's be clear about what happened here. This wasn't a supply chain breach. It wasn't a stolen prototype. It wasn't a leaker with insider access. This was Apple, the company that has built its entire brand around secrecy and surprise, accidentally shipping its own product roadmap inside a software update that anyone with a developer account could download. The company that is currently suing Jon Prosser for allegedly leaking iOS 26 details, the same company that flew employees to Cupertino in Faraday-bag conditions to protect the Vision Pro launch, just handed its entire autumn lineup to the internet on a plate.
Now, does any of this actually tell us anything we didn't already know? Honestly, not really. We've been tracking the iPhone Ultra, the camera AirPods, the smart home hub, and the OLED MacBook Pro in this newsletter for months. The code references confirm what analysts and leakers have been saying all year. But confirmation and surprise are two very different things, and Apple just sacrificed the latter entirely.
This matters because the reveal is part of the product. Apple keynotes work because the audience doesn't know exactly what's coming. The gasps, the applause, the "one more thing" moments, all of that depends on at least some element of surprise. When John Ternus takes the stage for his first product launch as CEO next month, the audience will already know about the iPhone Ultra, the camera AirPods, the smart home hub, and the new Apple TV. They'll have seen the AirPods demo video. They'll know the model numbers. The magic trick doesn't work when everyone already knows how it's done.
It's not just an Apple problem, either. This week has been brutal for leaks across the tech and entertainment industries. Rockstar Games had been building towards its biggest moment in over a decade: the first extended gameplay reveal of Grand Theft Auto 6, scheduled for August 27th as a Netflix exclusive. On Monday, a leaker calling themselves "CyberLeek" posted gameplay footage, map images, and even cutscenes online, nine days before the official reveal. Take-Two Interactive has been frantically issuing takedowns, which only confirms the footage is real. The leaker says they won't stop until Rockstar apologises for going digital-only. Take-Two's stock took a hit. And the carefully choreographed Netflix premiere, which was supposed to be one of the biggest entertainment events of the year, has been significantly undermined.
The parallel with Apple is striking. Both companies invest enormous resources in building anticipation. Both rely on the reveal being the moment that drives conversation, media coverage, and ultimately sales. And both had that moment stolen this week, one by a disgruntled activist and the other by its own software team. If you're John Ternus preparing for your first keynote, or Sam Houser at Rockstar preparing for the biggest game launch in history, this week has been a reminder that in 2026, keeping anything secret until you're ready to show it is almost impossible.
For Apple specifically, the question is whether this changes anything. The products will still be announced. The keynote will still happen. People will still buy the iPhone Ultra and the camera AirPods regardless of whether they knew about them in advance. But there's a difference between a product launch that makes headlines and one that merely confirms what everyone already knew. Apple used to be in the business of the former. Increasingly, it's settling for the latter. And this week, it only has itself to blame.
Ask PHT
Last week, I launched Ask PHT, a new AI chatbot inside iPhone Essentials Plus. It makes the course’s 400-plus lessons much easier to use: ask a question in plain English and it gives you a direct answer, along with links to the most relevant lessons if you want to learn more.
People have already asked about reminders, photo filters, notification sounds, CarPlay, Safari and iPhone security.
One person started with: “Give me some tips to keep my phone secure.” Ask PHT suggested several practical changes, then turned them into a five-minute security checklist and finally an exact tap-by-tap walkthrough.
Someone else had forgotten how to put the Proper Honest Tech website on their Home Screen. Ask PHT provided the precise steps, explained how to make it behave like an app and linked directly to the full lesson.
You might reasonably ask why this is useful when ChatGPT and Gemini already exist. Those are brilliant general-purpose tools, but they don’t know exactly what’s inside iPhone Essentials Plus. Ask PHT draws from my course material, answers at whatever level of detail you need and takes you straight to the relevant guides and videos.
You don’t need to know the correct Apple terminology, or even exactly what you’re looking for. Just describe the problem in your own words.
Ask PHT is still in beta, but the early results have been really encouraging. If you own iPhone Essentials Plus, it’s available now alongside the redesigned course. Log in here and give it a try.
If you don't own iPhone Essentials Plus, and you'd like to try it for yourself, the course is still available at its current price, and anyone who buys now will also receive my new product, iPhone Essentials free when it launches soon. The courses will be sold separately after that.
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Google Goes All-In on AI, and Proves Apple Right...
Google launched the Pixel 11 series earlier this week. The reviews are in. And they're not kind.
Trusted Reviews headlined theirs "Too much AI, not enough upgrades." Android Central went with "It didn't have to come to this." Android Police said the Pixel 11 Pro is "so good at being last year's phone, Google should have left it alone." User reactions have been even blunter. The overwhelming consensus is that Google raised the price by $100, barely changed the hardware, and tried to paper over the cracks with Gemini features nobody asked for.
The specifics are damning. The design is essentially unchanged for the third year running. The base Pixel 11 Pro has actually had its RAM cut from 16GB to 12GB, meaning you need to spend $1,219 to get back to where last year's model started. The GPU still doesn't support the latest graphics API for gaming. The modem still drops calls in the same places. The display still has a flickering issue that Google has refused to address for years. And the camera, which has always been the Pixel's trump card, is described by Trusted Reviews as "very good, but no longer market-leading." All of this for $100 more than the Pixel 10 Pro.
What Google did do is pile on the AI. Gemini is now everywhere. There's a multicolour flash that glows when Gemini is "thinking." There's Magic Capture, which lets the AI choose your best photos from a two-minute burst. There's proactive suggestions, contextual awareness, and an AI-first philosophy that touches every corner of the operating system. It's impressive technology. But the reviewers' verdict is clear: none of it makes up for a phone that otherwise feels like last year's model with a higher price tag.
This matters for Apple, because in three weeks, John Ternus is expected to take the stage and unveil the iPhone 18 Pro at a rumoured starting price of $1,349 to $1,399, up from $1,099. The early indications are that the iPhone 18 Pro is also going to be an iterative hardware update: same basic design, smaller Dynamic Island, improved cameras, faster chip. The headline story will be Siri AI, the new photo editing tools, and the broader Apple Intelligence push. In other words, Apple is about to attempt something similar to what Google just tried: raise the price, keep the hardware familiar, and lean on AI to justify it.
The difference is in the approach. Google's AI strategy has consistently felt like throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. A glowing flash when Gemini is thinking. Proactive suggestions you didn't ask for. AI woven into every corner of the OS whether it belongs there or not. It's technically impressive, but it answers questions nobody is asking. And when you pair that with unchanged hardware and a $100 price increase, reviewers and consumers see right through it.
Apple has historically been better at this. Not first, not flashiest, but more considered. When Apple adds a feature, it tends to solve an actual problem that real people have, rather than demonstrating what's technically possible. The Siri AI demo I ran a few weeks ago, where I asked it to find a toy my wife had messaged me about a month ago and then find it on Amazon, is a perfect example. That's not a tech demo. That's a genuinely useful thing that saved me ten minutes of scrolling through old messages. If Apple fills the iPhone 18 Pro keynote with moments like that, practical, grounded, obviously useful, the strategy can absolutely work, even at $1,349.
But if Apple turns up on September 9th and spends 45 minutes showing us AI party tricks that look great on stage but never get used in real life, it'll land the same way the Pixel 11 has: impressive technology that nobody needed, at a price nobody wanted to pay. Google just showed Apple exactly what not to do. The question is whether Apple was watching.
Tip of the Week
Did you know, you can leave a note on a location card in Maps? Maybe you've found a place that you love to get coffee, but it's cash-only. Leave yourself a note, so that you remember next time you view it.
Starting from a place card, scroll all the way to the bottom and tap on the ellipsis menu (...). Choose Add a Note, then leave your note, and tap the Blue Tick button. The note will now show at the top of the place card each time you view it.
