Apple has launched its latest iPhone software update, iOS 26.4, and there’s good reason to be excited. Yes, it includes some fun things, like delightful new emojis, but there’s one addition I’m particularly pleased about.
Buried in the patch notes is this rather innocuous change:
“Purchase Sharing lets adult members in Family Sharing groups use their own payment method when making purchases, without relying on the family organiser.”
Halle-bloody-lujah.
Since I finished high school, I’ve always owned an iPhone. My parents have iPhones, and so does my younger brother. For years, we’ve used Apple’s Family Sharing feature, letting each other access apps and subscriptions without needing to make separate purchases.
However, because this was set up using my mum’s account, all purchases automatically came from her bank account. Despite trying various workarounds, we eventually resigned ourselves to this annoying centralised payment system. Any time one of us (usually me or my brother) wanted to buy an app, we’d send a quick message or call mum to let her know, accompanied by a bank transfer of the app’s cost (despite her protests).
Now, with iOS 26.4, I can finally pay for apps using my own debit card, instead of constantly paying back the bank of mum.
Apple also claims that iOS 26.4 has “improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly”. I don’t know about you, but I feel that making typos on an iPhone keyboard is easier than ever. This YouTube video somewhat vindicated my suspicions, so I’m hoping the new update makes the typing experience better.
When you go to update your iPhone (Settings > General > Software Update), here are the iOS 26.4 patch notes that appear:
Apple Intelligence
Live Translation in Messages automatically translates incoming texts, including group messages, and sends a response in your preferred language so it arrives already translated
Apple Music
Concerts helps you discover nearby shows from artists in your library and recommends new artists based on what you listen to
Offline Music Recognition in Control Centre identifies songs without an internet connection and delivers results automatically when you’re back online
Ambient Music widget for Sleep, Chill, Productivity and Wellbeing brings curated playlists to the Home Screen
Full-screen backgrounds give album and playlist pages a more immersive look
Accessibility
Reduce bright effects setting minimises bright flashes when tapping on elements like buttons
Subtitle and caption settings are available from the captions icon while viewing media, making them easier to find, customise and preview
Reduce Motion setting more reliably reduces the animations of Liquid Glass for users sensitive to onscreen motion
This update also includes the following enhancements:
Support for AirPods Max 2
8 new emoji including an orca, trombone, landslide, ballet dancer and distorted face are available in the emoji keyboard
Freeform gains advanced image creation and editing tools, and a premium content library, joining Apple Creator Studio
Mark reminders as urgent from the Quick Toolbar or by touching and holding, and filter for urgent reminders in your Smart Lists
Purchase Sharing lets adult members in Family Sharing groups use their own payment method when making purchases, without relying on the family organiser
Improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly
It’s a reasonable list of features and improvements, with many of them also coming to iPad and Mac.
For the longest time, Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 have been the go-to platforms for businesses of varying sizes. Providing collaborative tools, cloud storage, and branded emails, these platforms are ubiquitous in most workplaces. With Apple Business, the iPhone company hopes to keep more people within its ecosystem.
Announced overnight in the US and confirmed to launch in Australia on 14 April, Apple Business is billed as a one-stop shop for all things work-related for Apple devices. It doubles as a central hub for managing Apple devices within a workplace and controlling how a company’s brand appears online.
Many of the included features already exist in some form, like branded emails and Tap to Pay on iPhone, but now they have a more central home. Not all the features are coming to Australia, at least to start with. At launch, only the US can access the business-centric version of the device repair service AppleCare+ or buy iCloud storage for the company.
Similarly, only US and Canada-based businesses will be able to place ads on Apple’s Maps app. Starting in a few months, ads will start appearing on searches within Maps for users in those two countries.
But most of the Apple Business tools and features are free, which is what Australians will have access to when it launches. One of the major benefits touted by Apple is “zero-touch deployment”, meaning that a company’s IT department won’t need to manually set up devices for each employee. Instead, the device, whether it be an iPhone or a Mac, will be ready to use, replete with company apps and settings, out of the box.
Apple’s business hub will also allow for brand control, letting companies quickly adjust logos and imagery across platforms. For instance, a business can make its branding appear when its emails arrive in a customer’s inbox, or when processing a payment, adding a sense of legitimacy.
Google and Microsoft might have a strong presence in workplaces currently, but it’s clear that Apple wants to get more involved starting from next month.
WWDC, one of Apple’s biggest annual events, has been locked in for 2026, with the major keynote scheduled for 8 June, US time.
Traditionally, Apple uses WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) as a platform to announce major software updates to its plethora of devices. Last year saw the announcement of iOS 26, with the rest of Apple’s operating systems adopting a shared ’26’ suffix.
In previous years, Apple also announced new hardware, including the Vision Pro headset. But more recently, WWDC has focused primarily on software features, in line with the conference’s developer-centric theme.
Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman reported in January that Apple planned to announce a chatbot interface for Siri at WWDC 2026 that functions similarly to ChatGPT and Gemini. That update would likely come as part of the next wave of major operating system updates, including iOS 27.
Prices of postpaid and prepaid Telstra mobile plans are going up starting on 5 May, with the telco citing network investment as the main driver.
Most postpaid plans are increasing by $4 per month, while Telstra’s prepaid plans are set to increase by around $5 per recharge. Telstra is also no longer selling its $50 monthly Starter plan, the telco’s cheapest postpaid product, to new customers as of 5 May, but will allow existing customers to keep the plan at $55 per month.
Once the price increase takes effect, the cheapest Telstra postpaid option will be the Basic plan, which will cost $74 per month, up from $70, including 50GB of data.
On the prepaid side, Telstra’s seven-day plan will cost $15 per recharge, up from $13. It will come with an extra gigabyte of data, totalling 4GB, with each prepaid plan gaining higher data allocations along with the price hike.
Telstra’s cheapest 28-day prepaid plan will soon cost $44, a $5 increase per recharge over its current $39 price. It will also include 20GB of data instead of the existing 15GB allocation.
Along with the monthly plans and short-term recharges, the Telstra price increase also impacts the telco’s long-expiry plans. Its six-month prepaid plan will increase by $20 to $200, while the 12-month plan rises by $45, totalling $395.
How much will Telstra plans cost after the price increase?
Only one of Telstra’s mobile plans will stay the same price after May: the $99 Premium postpaid plan, with 300GB of data. Elsewhere, the cost of everything else is going up.
Depending on your existing plan, the price increase is proportionately different. For example, the new Basic postpaid price is nearly six per cent higher, but the cheapest 28-day prepaid will soon cost nearly 13 per cent more.
Here’s how much more Telstra’s postpaid mobile plans will cost after 5 May:
Mobile plan
Included data
Old price
New price
Starter
5GB
$50
$55
Basic
50GB
$70
$74
Essential
180GB
$80
$84
Premium
300GB
$99
$99
Mobile Bundle
25GB
$57
$61
Telstra One Number
N/A
$5
$8
Telstra’s revised postpaid plans.
In place of selling the Starter plan to new customers, Telstra announced a new “Access” plan. Available to customers who apply directly to Telstra, it’s a lower-cost plan with 5GB and “connectivity for basic needs”. Telstra did not specify how much the Access plan costs.
On top of that, Telstra also confirmed a revamp to its concession discount. Previously only applicable to the Starter plan, a 10 per cent discount for concession card holders will soon be available across Telstra’s Upfront Postpaid plans.
And here’s how much more the telco’s prepaid plans cost:
Plan
Old data allocation
Old price
New data allocation
New price
7 Days
3GB
$13
4GB
$15
28 Days
15GB
$39
20GB
$44
28 Days
25GB
$49
35GB
$54
28 Days
35GB
$59
45GB
$64
28 Days
70GB
$69
80GB
$74
6 Months
70GB
$180
80GB
$200
12 Months
165GB
$350
180GB
$395
Telstra’s revised prepaid plans.
In a blog post announcing the changes, Telstra claimed that the price increase is to help the telco improve its network performance, reliability, and security. Part of the company’s explanation also covered its work in expanding the 5G network and introducing satellite-to-mobile services across postpaid plans.
One image was all it took to ignite a global controversy. Technically, it was two visuals stitched together in a side-by-side comparison. But it was enough to stoke the flames of outrage towards a global AI superpower.
One part of the image showed a young, blonde-haired woman in the rain, staring beyond the camera in a gloomily lit scene. Next to the image was another visual of the same scene, yet noticeably different. The scene’s lighting had changed, as had the woman’s features. Her lips looked fuller and redder, her hair contained more colour than was previously present, and her eyebrows more arched.
Depicted in the visuals was Grace Ashcroft, one of the protagonists of Resident Evil Requiem, the latest entry in the long-running horror game series. Aside from her terrifyingly starring role in the game, she’s now the centre of a storm surrounding DLSS 5, an AI technology recently unveiled by Nvidia.
Drag the line to see the before and after comparison. Images: Nvidia / Capcom.
Criticism came swiftly following DLSS 5’s reveal; gamers and game developers all over the world decried the altered version of Ashcroft as an example of ‘AI slop’. This sentiment wasn’t confined to one corner of the internet, either. Posts in popular gaming subreddits lampooning DLSS 5 have upvotes in the tens of thousands, memes flooded social media, and even the comments on Nvidia’s reveal video are overwhelmingly negative.
But gamers aren’t the only ones incensed about DLSS 5’s visual interference; those who make games have reacted strongly, from “disgust” to thinking the upscaled images were a “joke”. And there are fears that the impact of Nvidia’s new technology will reach much further than changing the way games look.
What is DLSS meant to do?
DLSS, short for ‘Deep Learning Super Sampling‘, is a suite of Nvidia technologies designed to help games run smoother and look clearer. Rather than being one all-encompassing tool, it’s a collection of AI-based rendering technologies that achieve slightly different outcomes.
Some, like ‘Super Resolution’, sample images at a lower resolution to then upscale them to a higher quality. It’s meant to be less taxing on a device’s (usually a PC) graphics processing unit (GPU), so games can run smoother, in more frames per second, at a higher resolution output.
Game developers can opt in to use DLSS technologies, and players can tweak and toggle DLSS on and off via a game’s settings menu. Theoretically, the technology is meant to improve the performance of games, even on lower-powered hardware.
So far, DLSS has largely been used to upscale images or generate additional frames to make games look smoother. But not all game developers see it as a net positive.
“I’ve always felt a little bit uncomfortable with DLSS technology,” said Jack Kirby Crosby, a Melbourne-based artist working on Summerhill. “It feels like a technology that you go over to your grandparents’ and turn off motion smoothing on the TV.”
Melbourne-based artist Jack Kirby Crosby (Summerhill, Moving Out 2, Armello) is among the critics of DLSS 5. Image: Supplied.
With the announcement of DLSS 5, performance and upscaling were no longer the main features. According to Nvidia, DLSS 5 included a “real-time neural rendering model” that aims to turn video game graphics into “cinematic” and “photoreal” visuals.
Crosby, who was also the Art Director on Moving Out 2, felt “disgust” upon seeing Nvidia’s demos, joining a chorus of people who believe that the technology makes wholesale changes to the source material.
“The concept of a program or a piece of software that’s heavily integrated with a graphics card, creating new stuff inside a game that may not have been there from the start, makes me deeply uncomfortable.”
Summerhill is from the same core team behind the Alto’s Adventure series, which is also known for its beautiful imagery. Image: Land & Sea.
He wasn’t the only one who reacted negatively to Nvidia’s latest technology. Legions of gamers voiced their collective displeasure, with many considering DLSS 5 an overreach of the technology by drastically changing a game’s visual style.
“I genuinely thought [the DLSS 5 demo] was a joke when I saw some screenshots,” said Dean Walshe, a Canberra-based 3D artist who worked on the highly stylised Void Bastards and its follow-up, Wild Bastards. “I assumed the original would be much more restrained and the internet was just doing their thing of goofing on it.”
What does DLSS 5 do to a game’s graphics?
Much of the heated discussion surrounding DLSS 5 centres on exactly how the technology is changing the original visuals. When responding to the initial wave of criticism, Huang explained that the technology “fuses controllability of the geometry and textures and everything about the game with generative AI”.
“It’s not post-processing, it’s not post-processing at the frame level, it’s generative control at the geometry level.”
While many have taken issue with the process, including its use of generative AI, the output has attracted the most attention. Using the controversial Grace Ashcroft comparison as an example, Walshe explained why the processed image looks so different.
“All her skin has higher specular contrast and a finer micro detail applied to it,” he said. “Most people have seen this sort of stuff with face filters already on their phones and it’s having a similar result here in erasing and overwriting a lot of the original look.”
Images: Nvidia / Capcom.
To Crosby, DLSS 5’s output is a broader reflection of the style associated with AI-generated imagery.
“To my eyes, it looks like what that’s doing is looking at the ambient light that’s happening inside of the game and trying to move it closer to what this algorithm has been programmed to perceive as quote-unquote ‘more realistic’,” he said.
“It’s taking so much data that it’s actually averaging the look and making it feel almost generic in its styling. So as with all AI stuff, you’re kind of looking at the average of things, and I think average is just kind of boring.”
Walshe agreed, extending his criticism to the rest of Nvidia’s demos and how the technology attempts to depict a cohesive scene in a video game.
Wild Bastards, which Dean Walshe worked on, has a stylish graphic novel style. Image: Blue Manchu.
“The biggest part with all of these examples though is even if you liked the result, you now have this giant disconnect between game character models and their environment,” he said.
“None of them seem connected to the world around them, but rather badly photoshopped stock actors into a game. They sit next to a shelf that still has 3D aliasing issues and a low-poly glass with terrible transparency.”
A graphical arms race
Compounding the criticism of the next-gen DLSS technology is its high barrier to entry. An early demo available to attendees at Nvidia’s GTC conference ran on PCs equipped with two GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards. One GPU rendered the game, while the other ran the DLSS model.
Nvidia claims that “DLSS 5 will be optimised to run on a single GPU” when it launches, but the prohibitively high hardware cost remains.
Putting the dollar figure aside for a moment, Nvidia’s strategy is one familiar to Dr Brendan Keogh, an Associate Professor in the School of Communication at Queensland University of Technology. As both a games researcher and a developer, he has seen this technological hype cycle many times before.
“Ultimately, companies are trying to make a profit,” Dr Keogh said. “Game developers want to make a good game, but their employers want to make the cheapest game capable of making the most profit.”
He adds that technology improvements do come with upsides, like helping make independent games more viable for smaller teams. But the main issue, according to Dr Keogh, is when platform holders keep making lofty promises to sell new hardware at regular intervals. It’s part of what he calls “a multi-year scam that DLSS 5 is but one minor chapter of”.
Image: Supplied.
“…photorealism, and especially cinematic photorealism become the forever-out-of-reach promise of each new technology that encourages players to buy new hardware, to buy new remasters, to buy new sequels,” Dr Keogh said.
According to Crosby, handing over the visual style of a game to generative AI technology removes the intentionality and human element of game development.
“Every project that you work on is arrived at through a plethora of decision making,” he said. “What’s appropriate for the gameplay? What’s appropriate for the feeling or mood we’re trying to engender in our players? What will players get excited about?”
On Moving Out 2, a chaotic furniture removal multiplayer game, Crosby described how the art team emphasised the characters’ wacky expressions. Building on the first game, the team hand-animated the eyes and mouths as 2D textures separate from the rest of the character models, leading to a more comedic effect.
Moving Out 2‘s distinct visual style favours expressiveness and comedy over realism. Image: SMG Studio / Team17.
Human emotion and interpretation also factor into game development, even on remasters of older games. Early in Crosby’s career, he worked on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD remaster for the Nintendo Wii U. The original 2006 version is deeply personal to Crosby, having played it with his cousin, whose best friend had recently died by suicide.
“I have a personal connection to that game in having played it, and artificial intelligence cannot have that experience,” Crosby said. “It can’t have a human connection to what it is because it’s not human.”
Even with people involved when modernising older games, he believes that the original version of any game will be the most authentic representation of the artists’ original vision. Technological limitations require teams to collaborate and find creative solutions, which is part of what Crosby feels is the “deeply human and personal” aspect of game development.
In the pursuit of fidelity and realism, he laments the “diminishing returns” the industry has reached.
“…over the decades we’ve been pursuing realism at a rapid pace, trying to make games look and feel more hyper realistic in a sort of graphical arms race to kind of achieve the most perfect representation of reality,” Crosby said.
Many of the artists and developers spoken with for this story agreed that a game’s overall style outweighs any attempts at pushing graphical boundaries.
Super Mario 64, which has since been remastered, was revolutionary at the time. But its charmingly colourful graphics make it timeless. Image: Nintendo.
“The games from decades past that have stood the test of time are those that reject ‘photorealism’ in favour of having an actual style: Katamari Damacy, Rez, Super Mario 64, practically every Nintendo IP,” Dr Keogh said. “And look at the most popular games today: mobile casual games, Minecraft, Roblox, and weird cheap games on Steam.”
“Photorealism doesn’t sell games anymore, but it’s the only trick the biggest companies have up their sleeve.”
The games industry’s Ship of Theseus moment
The discussion surrounding DLSS 5 conjures shades of Microsoft’s poorly received AI-generated demo of Quake II. Demoed as a potential tool to assist with game preservation, Microsoft’s generative AI technology was criticised for how useful it would actually be to implement.
Similarly, technologies like DLSS 5 are causing headaches for preservationists who are trying to figure out what it means for how games are shown to future generations.
“If these new AI technologies become essential for making and playing games, it has the potential to not only add another layer of potential copyright complexity but bring into question what version of a game should be preserved,” said Chloe Appleby, Program Curator at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum.
Chloe Appleby questions how technologies like DLSS 5 will impact game preservation efforts. Image: Supplied.
“Do we preserve both DLSS off and on? Is the DLSS 5 version consistent amongst players and if not, what version represents the collective experience?”
On top of determining what gets preserved, the proliferation of AI technologies also complicates the historical element of showing games. Appleby’s work involves sourcing items for collection, as well as organising events such as ALT: GAMES, a grassroots festival for the New South Wales video game community. From her perspective, technologies like DLSS 5 add more variables to her job.
Community events like ALT: GAMES celebrate the artistry and human elements of game development. Image: ALT: GAMES, photographed by Grant Leslie for PHIVE City of Parramatta 2025.
“Experiences and intent from both the maker and the player changes significantly with this tech which impacts curatorial justifications and interpretations,” Appleby said. “In an exhibition context, how do you present this tech with the game? If you must display it, is the maker’s intent or the audience’s collective memory being compromised?”
What is the long-term impact of DLSS 5?
Backlash to DLSS 5 and the high price of compatible hardware equals a lot of unknowns as to the impact of Nvidia’s technology. Even so, it’s sparked a lot of speculation about AI technologies and working conditions more broadly.
At the time of Nvidia’s announcement, Bethesda, Capcom, and Ubisoft were among the major companies supporting DLSS 5. Reportedly, some developers at studios supporting DLSS 5 found out about the technology at the same time the public did.
Bethesda’s sci-fi epic Starfield was one of the games shown during the DLSS 5 demo. Images: Bethesda / Nvidia.
Dr Keogh is circumspect about whether DLSS 5 will tangibly change game development, “especially considering the huge negative backlash to how terrible it looks”.
“What will be important is for players to be vocal about the fact they want games made by actual human beings, that don’t require burning down whole forests and using huge amounts of water just to render bad shadows.”
“A painting isn’t automatically better if it has more colours and a video game isn’t automatically better if it has more pixels,” Dr Keogh said.
It’s a sentiment shared by Crosby, who criticised the act of trying to assign objective value to a subjective medium.
“Imagine you look at a Frida Kahlo painting and you’re like, ‘that’s only a 7 out of 10 because the rendering on her eyebrows doesn’t feel realistic – there aren’t that many people with monobrows, and so therefore that’s not that realistic’,” Crosby said. “It’s just absurd!”
“This is precisely what game development employers are hoping generative AI will achieve, and it’s up to game developers themselves to organise and prevent this in their workplace,” Dr Keogh said.
Many of Australia’s best-known games don’t push for photorealism. Instead, they have instantly recognisable art direction that suits each game. Images (clockwise from top left): House House, Witch Beam, Team Cherry, Massive Monster.
Unionisation was also brought up by Crosby, who described capitalism as “the elephant in the room”. With so much of game development shrouded in secrecy, he believes that workers having more control over their work would help push back on perceptions that more detailed graphics equals better games.
“I think we’ve gotten there because we don’t get to talk to the artists that make these games,” Crosby said. “We don’t get to talk to the artists and hear from them and hear what their intent was when they’re making a texture at eleven o’clock at night on a Sunday.”
“I would like to be able to buy RAM at a reasonable price again, and I am sure people that play games would rather be able to afford a console or computer than have this trash.”
My home is usually a tricky-to-navigate maze of filming equipment, so any robot vacuum has its work cut out for it. Weaving its way through various tripods, lights, and camera gear, the Ecovacs Deebot T90 Pro Omni certainly didn’t struggle to get around my apartment.
One of the highlights is the robot’s long 27cm mop roller, which covers more surface area in less time. Because of the roller design, it applies more downward pressure, while built-in water jets keep it clean, preventing any smearing along the way.
Stay tuned for a full review of the latest Ecovacs robot, which is so far delivering the goods.
Even though they cost a premium, foldable phones don’t always come with the best cameras. Phone companies often reserve the best cameras for their top ‘slab’ phones. But that trend might be coming to an end, based on the next generation of foldable phones.
Most recently, I’ve tried the Oppo Find N6, which has an impressive four rear cameras, including a 200MP main sensor from photography brand Hasselblad. It’s been a lot of fun seeing what high-quality shots I can take while in Hong Kong. This high-level hardware is also matched by the phone’s software, with a ‘Master Mode’ aimed at replicating the style of a Hasselblad camera.
Alongside the upcoming Motorola Razr Fold, which also has an impressive set of cameras, the Find N6 could usher in a new era of foldables that doesn’t sacrifice camera quality.
Valens Quinn attended an event in Hong Kong as a guest of Oppo.
