Apple's Thin Phone and Reduced Marketshare - DTH

Apple's got a thinner phone than Samsung but it also has a thinner premium marketshare thanks to... Google?

Apple unveiled their new product slate at their live event on Tuesday; here are the highlights:

iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro
The iPhone 17 has a 6.3-inch display, using the new A19 chipset with a six-core CPU and a five-core GPU, "all-day" battery life, allowing 8 more hours of video playback than the iPhone 16, and dual fusion cameras, including a 48MP Fusion ultrawide camera. The base model has 256GB of storage for $799.

The iPhone 17 Pro is available in 6.3 and 6.9-inch models, a unibody design with antenna and pro camera system, runs on the A19 Pro, and has a vapor chamber with deionized water for cooling. The base model of the Pro with 256GB storage starts at $1,099 and Pro Max at $1,199.

iPhone Air
The new iPhone Air, the thinnest iPhone at 5.6mm thick (the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is 5.8mm thick, for reference), has a 6.5-inch display, uses the A19 Pro 6-core chip, 5-core GPU, Adaptive Power Mode for managing battery life, and only uses eSIM, no physical SIM card option available. A 256GB iPhone Air starts at $999.

Pre-orders open Friday, September 12th, and phones are available beginning Friday, September 19th.

AirPods Pro 3 and Apple Watch Updates
The Apple AirPods Pro 3 offer better fit with a smaller design, foam eartips in five sizes, IP57 rating, improved active noise cancelling and bass, heart rate sensing during a workout, and live translation capability. The AirPods Pro 3 are $249.

The Apple Watch 11 adds blood pressure monitoring and new sleep score features, with a battery life of 24 hours for $399.

The Apple Watch Ultra 3 has a battery life of 42 hours, or 72 in low power mode, 5G and satellite connectivity, and goes for $799.

The entry-level Apple Watch SE 3 has an 18-hour battery life and is $249. Pre-orders open, available on September 19th.

Software Updates
Along with the product announcements, Apple also set the date for the release of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26 and macOS 26 for September 15th.

Other Tech News

Meta and TikTok Win EU Case
On Wednesday, Meta and TikTok won a legal challenge in Europe's second-highest court over fees related to the Digital Services Act.

Meta and TikTok initially sued the European Commission over the imposition of a supervisory fee of 0.05% of annual worldwide net income to cover costs of monitoring DSA compliance. The cost was initially calculated based on number of average monthly active users and a company's profits or losses in a previous financial quarter.

The judges are giving EU regulators 12 months to re-develop the methodology but do not have to refund the collected 2023 fees at this time.

Spotify Lossless Audio
Spotify is now making lossless audio available to premium subscribers. Spotify vice-president Gustav Gyllenhammar said in a statement, "The wait is finally over."

Premium subscribers will be notified as soon as lossless is available to them to turn on, with Australia, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the UK, and the US all beginning to get lossless now, with fifty markets around the globe gaining access through October.

Nikon Red Camera
Nikon announced a video-focused Red camera with the 24.5MP full-frame 'partially Stacked' sensor you'll find in the Z6III. It supports the R3D RAW video codec and the first 32-bit float audio recording in the industry. The Nikon ZR sells for $2,199 starting October 20th.

Google Drops Cloud Fees
On Wednesday Google eliminated data transfer fees for organizations processing workloads "in parallel" across two or more cloud platforms in the EU and Britain, ahead of the EU Data Act coming into effect on Friday.

The Data Act has a provision allowing cloud providers to pass through costs, like how Microsoft introduced at-cost transfer fees in the EU back in August, and AWS has on its website that EU customers can request reduced data transfer rates for eligible cases.

Smartphone Sales Rebound
Smartphone sales are back. Counterpoint says premium smartphone sales rose 8% year over year in the first half of 2025. That's the highest point for a first half of a year since Counterpoint began keeping track of the category.

Apple dominates the sector with 62% of sales, though that's down from 65% in the first half of 2024. Samsung holds steady at 20% and Huawei inched up from 7 to 8%. The big news is Google gaining 105% to sneak in behind Xiaomi into the top 5.

Zillow AI Virtual Staging
Real-estate marketplace Zillow is launching an AI-powered Virtual Staging Tool, enabling viewers to empty furniture or change the design style of a room.

The tool offers some pre-selected styles like modern, luxury, farmhouse, and Scandinavian (think IKEA). The Virtual Staging tool is currently limited to premium 'Showcase' listings, and only on select featured room photos. The Verge's Robert Hart notes all the current examples have rooms with plain white walls.