Linked List: June 16, 2026

Tuesday, 16 June 2026

Checking In on the iOS Continental Fun-Gap Drift 

Yours truly, in September 2024, expressing skepticism that “European iPhones are more fun now”:

Meanwhile no one in the EU will get Apple Intelligence or iPhone Mirroring, both of which features are very useful, and, dare I say, quite fun. Should we judge how much fun each side of the continental divide is having by how much fun they theoretically could be having, or by how much fun they are having?

As it stands, the fun side is not the EU. But hope springs eternal.

Here we are two years later and I think the answer is more clear than ever which side of the continental divide is more fun. It’s not the EU. EU users still don’t have iPhone Mirroring and until and unless the European Commission changes its interpretation of the DMA, they likely never will. It’s a great feature.

Apple Intelligence, as we knew it until last week, eventually came to the EU, about six months after it shipped for the rest of us. One can reasonably argue that EU iPhone and iPad users didn’t miss much during those six months. And that there hasn’t been that much to enjoy since Apple Intelligence debuted in the EU in iOS 18.4. That changed last week with the introduction of the first beta release of iOS 27. Siri AI is really good, truly useful, and genuinely fun. And it is not on pace to come to the EU six months after iOS 27 ships this fall. It is currently on pace to come to the EU never.

New in the App Store: Personalized Recommendations 

Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:

This week, Apple announced a series of discovery features that will personalize app recommendations based on users’ interests and behavior, providing a new way for developers to have their app discovered.

At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the iPhone maker introduced Personalized Collections in the App Store, which will showcase recommendations tailored to the individual. These will also include new “App Notes” that explain why the specific apps were recommended to you. Starting this week, you’ll find these new personalized suggestions in various places in the App Store, including the Apps or Games tab or on the Search tab.

Security research critics Mysk, posting on Twitter/X (XCancel link), report that the App Store app seemingly sends analytics usage data to Apple with everything you do in the App Store app, including exactly what you type, character-by-character — and that this isn’t for search suggestions, but for analytics. (Via Michael Tsai.)