The post Apple Wallet’s iOS 26 boarding passes now offered by Southwest Airlines, joining United and Delta appeared first on MacDailyNews.

Apple’s iOS 26 update has brought significant enhancements to boarding passes in the Wallet app, introducing features like shareable Live Activities for real-time flight tracking, integrated airport maps, and Find My support for luggage. As of late 2025, three major U.S. airlines—United, Delta, and Southwest—now fully support these upgraded digital boarding passes, making travel more seamless during the peak holiday season, with more carriers like Air Canada, American Airlines, and others expected to follow soon.

“Ryan Christoffel for 9to5Mac:
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“Saving boarding passes to Apple Wallet makes it quick and convenient to access those passes right when you need them. And in iOS 26, Apple upgraded the experience with three new features:

1. Live Activities
2. Airport maps
3. Luggage tracking with Find My

Live Activities for boarding passes can be shared with a single tap, making it easy for friends or family members to track your flight. And by integrating airport maps and luggage tracking right into the boarding passes, Apple has put more important travel info in one place.”
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MacDailyNews Take: The more, the merrier!

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The post Apple’s Find My enables ‘Share Item Location’ – more than 15 major airlines already on board appeared first on MacDailyNews.

Apple has introduced Share Item Location, a new iOS feature that helps users locate and recover misplaced items by easily and securely sharing the location of an AirTag or Find My network accessory with third parties such as airlines. Share Item Location is available now in most regions worldwide as part of the public beta of iOS 18.2, which will soon be available to all users as a free software update for iPhone Xs and later. Find My is built with privacy and safety at its core. The shared location will be disabled as soon as a user is reunited with their item, can be stopped by the owner at any time, and will automatically expire after seven days.

“Find My is an essential tool for users around the world to keep track of and find their belongings,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services, in a statement. “The Find My network and AirTag have proven to be a powerful combination for users while traveling, providing invaluable location information when bags have been misplaced or mishandled. With Share Item Location, we’re excited to give users a new way to easily share this information directly with third parties like airlines, all while protecting their privacy.”

Users can generate a Share Item Location link in the Find My app on their iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Recipients of a link will be able to view a website that shows a location of the item on an interactive map. The website will automatically update when a new location is available and will show a timestamp of the most recent update.

In the coming months, more than 15 airlines serving millions of people globally — including Aer Lingus, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Brussels Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Eurowings, Iberia, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Lufthansa, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, Turkish Airlines, United, Virgin Atlantic, and Vueling — will begin accepting Find My item locations as part of their customer service process for locating mishandled or delayed bags. More airlines will be added over time.

Apple has worked directly with partner airlines to put systems in place to privately and securely accept Share Item Location, leveraging the hundreds of thousands of Apple devices many airlines are already using. Access to each link will be limited to a small number of people, and recipients will be required to authenticate in order to view the link through either their Apple Account or partner email address.

“We’ve worked closely with Apple to incorporate Share Item Location into our baggage recovery process and are excited to make this feature available to our customers soon,” said David Kinzelman, United’s chief customer officer, in a statement. “We know many of our customers are already traveling with AirTag in their checked bags, and this feature will soon make it easier for them to share location information with us safely and securely, helping our customer service agents work more efficiently and giving our customers added peace of mind. We plan to accept Find My item locations in select airports initially, with the goal of introducing the service systemwide in early 2025.”

“While more than 99 percent of checked items make it to their destination as planned, we know how stressful it can be for customers when they don’t. That’s why we’re excited to support Share Item Location beginning later this year,” said Erik Snell, Delta Air Lines’ senior vice president of Airport Customer Service, Cargo Operations, Ground Support Equipment, and Global Clean, in a statement. “It will provide our team with extra visibility to reunite those items with their owners. This cutting-edge solution, developed by Apple and in partnership with Delta Air Lines, will enable us to locate items more efficiently and effectively.”

“By accepting Find My item locations, we’ll be able to offer additional peace of mind to customers who travel with AirTag in their luggage,” said Annalisa Gigante, head of innovation at IAG, the parent company of British Airways, Iberia, Vueling, Aer Lingus, and LEVEL, in a statement. “We’re always testing innovative solutions and enhancing our systems to ensure that checked bags reach their intended destination as quickly as possible, and we look forward to incorporating this solution into our lost baggage processes beginning later this year.”

Additionally, SITA, a leader in air transport technology, will build support for Share Item Location into WorldTracer, the baggage-tracing system used by over 500 airlines and ground handlers at more than 2,800 airports around the world.

“As the leading industry provider for end-to-end baggage management solutions, and with global passenger traffic set to double by 2040, airports and airlines worldwide will face important challenges. This collaboration with Apple will make it easy for airlines that use our industry-leading WorldTracer solution to implement Share Item Location for more efficient baggage management, and will be a huge benefit for passengers,” said Nicole Hogg, SITA’s director of Baggage, in a statement. “We look forward to seeing this feature adopted across the industry to complement existing tracking tools.”

MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s new “Share Item Location” feature is built on the Find My network, a crowdsourced network of over one billion Apple devices that use Bluetooth wireless technology to detect missing devices or items nearby, and report their approximate location back to the owner. The entire process is end-to-end encrypted and anonymous. No one, not even Apple or Find My Network accessory manufacturers, can view a device’s location or information.

Today is Veterans Day in the U.S. Thank you, American veterans! Much thanks also to American veterans’ families, who also sacrifice and serve as servicemembers are often deployed far away and for long periods of time!

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The post China plays a trump card in the chip war, but Apple chip production unaffected so far appeared first on MacDailyNews. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Apple’s contract chipmaker, said it doesn’t expect any immediate impact on its production from China’s decision to restrict the export of two metals widely used in semiconductors and electric vehicles.

Ben Blanchard and Roger Tung for Reuters:

In a move that a top Chinese trade adviser warned was “just a start,” Beijing said on Monday it would limit exports of products made from the minor metals of gallium and germanium to protect national security. That followed the U.S. decision to impose export restrictions to curb China’s access to key technologies used for artificial intelligence.

Taiwan is a major producer of chips used in everything from smartphones and cars to fighter jets, supplying companies like Apple and Nvidia.

“After evaluation, we do not expect the export restrictions on raw materials gallium and germanium will have any direct impact on TSMC’s production,” Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co said in an emailed statement. “We will continue to monitor the situation closely,” it added, without elaborating.

MacDailyNews Take: We’ll see if China does anything more with its rare earths export quota, but when they cut rare earths exports in 2010 amid tensions with the United States, it resulted in greater efforts by companies outside of China to produce the metals and China’s global market share dropped precipitously from 97% in 2010 to about 60% in 2019.

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The post London court dismisses Apple appeal in 4G patent dispute with Optis appeared first on MacDailyNews. Apple has been found guilty of infringing two telecommunications patents used in its iPhones and iPads by London’s Court of Appeal. The ruling is a major victory for Optis Cellular Technology LLC, a U.S. patent holder that sued Apple in 2019. Optis says the two patents are essential to certain technological standards, such as 4G.

The Court of Appeal dismissed Apple’s appeal of a lower court ruling that found the company had infringed the patents. Apple had argued that the patents were not essential to 4G and that it did not need to license them from Optis. However, the Court of Appeal found that the patents were essential and that Apple had infringed them by using the technology without a license.

The ruling could have significant implications for Apple. It could be forced to pay Optis damages, and it could, although unlikely, also be blocked from selling iPhones and iPads in the UK.

Reuters:

[Apple’s] challenge was rejected by the Court of Appeal, with Judge Colin Birss saying in a written ruling that the High Court was “right to reject (Apple’s) argument for non-infringement” and on the issue of the patents being essential.

The Court of Appeal last month upheld an appeal by Optis against an earlier decision to revoke two other 4G-related patents, following a ruling in October that Optis is entitled to an injunction to stop Apple infringing its patents before a court has ruled on the fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms of use.

Apple was granted permission earlier this year to appeal against the October ruling.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple is likely to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

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