2026-04-17 20:18:15
Stan Ng, Apple's vice president of product marketing for Apple Watch, AirPods, Health, and Home, has retired after 31 years at the company (via Bloomberg).
Ng publicly announced his departure on LinkedIn on Thursday, sharing an image of the sunrise at Apple Park. "After 31 years at Apple, today was my last day," he wrote. "It was a joy to work at Apple and I truly loved what I did." Apple's latest stock vesting date took place on Wednesday, and many employees who retire or leave tend to do so around that time.
Ng joined Apple in 1995 as a senior systems engineer, before Steve Jobs had returned to the company. He later moved into product roles for the Mac before becoming one of the key marketing executives behind the original iPod. He also appeared in product launch videos, including the iPod touch reveal in 2007, and went on to oversee marketing for the iPhone and Apple Watch before Home initiatives were added to his remit in 2021.
Within Apple's marketing organization, Ng reported to Bob Borchers, who oversees product marketing under senior vice president Greg Joswiak. Marketing leaders at Apple go beyond traditional marketing, with Apple's product marketing leaders playing an active role in shaping the products themselves. Erik Treski, Apple's worldwide product marketing executive for AirPods and Home, who was referenced in last month's AirPods Max update announcement, will assume part of Ng's responsibilities. It is not yet known how the rest of his responsibilities will be divided up.
Ng's exit is the latest in a wave of senior departures that has accelerated in recent months. John Giannandrea, Apple's longtime artificial intelligence chief, was also reported to be leaving this week. Former COO Jeff Williams retired last year, design chief Alan Dye departed for Meta Platforms at the end of 2025, environment and government affairs head Lisa Jackson retired earlier this year, and general counsel Katherine Adams is set to leave later in 2026.
Ng is also the third executive closely tied to Apple's health and fitness push to exit in quick succession. Williams had overseen those groups until his retirement, while Jay Blahnik, head of Fitness+, is departing following an investigation and lawsuit related to allegations about his behavior. Apple's health initiatives were recently brought under Eddy Cue as part of a broader organizational reshuffle following Williams' retirement.
This article, "iPod Marketing Veteran Stan Ng Retires After 31 Years at Apple" first appeared on MacRumors.com
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2026-04-17 18:50:39
A source said to be familiar with Apple's supply chain today revealed the color options Apple is planning for the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and the upcoming foldable iPhone.
Image via Macworld.
2026-04-17 17:32:36
No, you aren't going crazy – Apple has quietly made a backend change to the App Store app in iOS that switches the location of the Updates tab and renames it to make it more prominent.
In the App Store app, you can see the change by tapping your profile picture in the top-right corner. The "Apps & Purchase History" tab used to be at the top the list, but it has switched places with "Updates," which is now called "App Updates."
The change was made by Apple without issuing a software update and is evident on both iOS 26.4.1 and the iOS 26.5 beta.
There's actually a faster way to access the App Updates page in iOS 26.4 that was recently highlighted by Daring Fireball's John Gruber: Simply long-press on the App Store app on your Home Screen and you can jump straight to it from the contextual menu.
2026-04-17 07:48:00
Customers are more loyal to Apple than ever, according to a smartphone loyalty survey conducted by phone trade-in site SellCell. 96.4% of customers surveyed said they planned to stick with an iPhone for their next upgrade, and 3.6% said they would choose a different brand. That's up from 91.9% in SellCell's 2021 survey and 90.5% in 2019.
Android users were less loyal to their brand, and are almost 4x more likely to switch than iPhone users. 86.4% of people surveyed said they would stick with an Android device, while 13.6% said they planned to switch.
Of the 3.6% of iPhone users who said they would move to another platform, 69.7% said they would choose a Samsung smartphone, and 20.2% said they would choose a Google smartphone. While most Android users said they would switch to a Samsung or Google device, 26.8% said they would choose an iPhone over an Android smartphone.
Most iPhone users said they would stick with an iPhone because they prefer Apple (60.8%), while 17.4% said they were invested in the Apple ecosystem. About half of iPhone users contemplating switching said they would do so because the iPhone is too expensive or other brands offer better value, but 22.5% said other brands have better technology.
iPhone users were more likely to be loyal over time, and 83.8% said they had used an iPhone for more than five years. By comparison, just 33.8% of Android users said they had stuck with a brand for over five years.
SellCell's survey was limited to 5,000 U.S. respondents. The site says there was a roughly equal representation between iPhone and Android users, with two separate surveys that included the same question structure. More information from the survey is available from SellCell's website.
2026-04-17 07:06:45
Apple hardware engineering chief John Ternus and marketing chief Greg Joswiak recently did an interview with Tom's Guide, where they shared new insights into the MacBook Neo, AI, and spatial computing.
I think maybe another one from our past is this idea that Steve talked about is the Mac being the bicycle for the mind, right? And you know, from the very beginning, the vision was let's make personal computing as accessible to as many people as possible. And that was the mission of the MacBook Neo.
You know the products in this space that it's competing against. They're plastic, they're little, you can flex them. They're so cheap, because what have they done? They just tried to cut a nickel, cut a quarter, cut a dollar out of everything to try to make it cheaper, and as a result, they made it cheap, which is very different than making it a lower price and high value, which was the approach we were taking.
We're going to make the best iPad we can possibly make. We're going to make the best Mac we can possibly make. Some customer is going to choose one, some customer is going to choose the other. A lot of customers actually like to have both, and that's great too. So yeah, we never think about... there's never been this idea of mashing these two things together.
We've been doing things with intelligence for many years, right? And gen AI allows us an opportunity to do that even more. So I'm excited about that, but boy, this is not a sprint. This is a marathon, right? We're going to be doing stuff with intelligence for decades, not months or years.
2026-04-17 05:54:37
iPhone accessory maker Casely reissued a recall for its faulty Power Pod wireless power bank (via The Verge) after one of the affected units resulted in the death of a 75-year-old woman and another exploded on a plane.
Casely first issued the recall in April 2025 through the Consumer Product Safety Commission. At that time, the company said that the power banks could overheat and ignite, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers. A total of 51 people had reported incidents where the battery overheated, expanded, or caught fire, and there were six minor burn injuries.
Since then, there have been an additional 28 reports, including two serious incidents. In August 2024, a woman in New Jersey was charging her phone with a Casely power bank on her lap, and it caught fire and exploded. She had second- and third-degree burns, and later died from complications from her injuries.
In February 2026, a 47-year-old woman was charging her cell phone with the power bank on an airplane when it caught fire and exploded, resulting in first-degree burns. Airlines have introduced more restrictive limits on power banks due to incidents like this.
Casely sold 429,200 power banks, which were branded as the Casely "Power Pod" with MagSafe compatibility. The 5,000mAh wireless power banks were available in multiple colors and patterns, and were priced at between $30 and $70. Affected units have an E33A model number and were sold from Amazon.com, the Casely website, and other websites between March 2022 and September 2024.
Anyone with a Casely Power Pod should stop using it immediately and contact Casely for a free replacement or a $60 store credit. Affected units should not be discarded, and customers should contact their local household hazardous waste collection center for disposal assistance. Casely is contacting all known purchasers directly.
