Apple US manufacturing, iOS 26.4 beta 2

Welcome to 95 Mac Daily for Tuesday, February 24th, 2026. I'm your host, Chance Miller. We are sponsored this week by Ben Q. Leading off today, a new report from The Information details OpenAI's hardware ambitions and reveals that the first Johnny Ive-designed hardware device from the company will be a smart speaker. As we've discussed before, OpenAI is working with Johnny Ive to produce its first line of hardware products, with a launch expected next year. Johnny Ive, of course, is the former design chief of Apple. The Informations report says that OpenAI's first hardware product designed with Johnny Ive will be a smart speaker and is likely to be priced between $200 and $300. The speaker will have a camera, enabling it to take in information about its users and their surroundings, such as items on a nearby table or conversations people are having in its vicinity. It will also allow people to buy things by identifying them with a facial recognition feature similar to Face ID. The report also elaborates that Ive's involvement with OpenAI is complicated. He still runs his design firm LoveFrom as an entity independent of OpenAI, even though it is Love From that is in charge of coming up with potential OpenAI device designs. Meanwhile, OpenAI's internal devices team is in charge of making the hardware and software powering it, as well as understanding how consumers will use that device. That division of responsibilities has reportedly sparked tension. Some OpenAI staffers have complained that Love From is slow to revise its designs and shares little about its process, even with others working on devices within OpenAI. We should see the first fruits of this OpenAI and Johnny Knife collaboration sometime next year Next up today Apple has announced that it plans to start manufacturing the Mac Mini in the United States starting this year Sabi Khan Apple chief operating officer shared the development in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, and Apple followed that up with a dedicated press release with more information. The Mac Mini is currently manufactured in Vietnam and China. Apple has previously pushed the low-volume Mac Pro as Apple's made-in-America desktop computer, starting in 2013 and continuing with the revision in 2019. The Mac Mini is expected to replace that as Apple's computer made in the United States. When asked how many Mac Minis Apple makes per year, Khan answers that Apple is making, quote, thousands every week. It's not explicitly clear how many of those will be made in the United States starting later this year. Apple CEO Tim Cook said, quote, Apple said that adding Mac Mini Assembly will double the size of its campus in Houston. It also added that it will be establishing an advanced manufacturing center in the city in order to provide U.S. businesses with training in advanced manufacturing techniques. The timing of this announcement is not coincidental. President Trump is due to give his annual State of the Union address tonight and will almost certainly claim credit for boosting United States manufacturing. You can hit the link in the show notes for some pictures and a video of Apple's facility in Houston. We are sponsored this week by BenQ the makers of Mac monitors designed to look just like your Mac BenQ Mac Colors technology makes the MA Series look identical to your Mac built display with the same vibrancy the same color accuracy and no fiddling required. You also get USB-C 1 cable connectivity, so your Mac charges and connects with a single cord, plus BenQ's DisplayPilot 2 software for quick control of brightness, volume, resolution. The stand is fully adjustable with height, swivel, tilt, and even a full 90-degree pivot, and the Nano Gloss panel delivers that premium glossy look that Mac users love. You can check out the full lineup, including the gorgeous MA27 OUP, by hitting the link in the show notes. BenQ is also running a giveaway with no purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older and a resident of the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, or Canada, excluding Quebec. Full details are in the show notes. My thanks to BenQ for sponsoring the show. Writing out today, Apple has released iOS 26.4 Beta 2, which is now rolling out to developers, and it expands support for testing encrypted RCS messaging on iPhone. When iOS 26.4 Beta 1 was released last week, it added early support for testing RCS encryption, but just for iPhone-to-iPhone messaging. This basically meaning iPhone users who have iMessage disabled. In iOS 26.4 Beta 2, however, support is expanding to include conversations between iPhone and Android devices. Apple says that support for testing RCS encryption is rolling out gradually to iPhone users running this new beta. Android users, meanwhile, will need to be running the latest beta version of Google Messages. Availability will also vary based on carriers and location. Once updated to iOS 26 Beta 2 iPhone users can go to Settings Messages then RCS Messaging and look for a new end encryption toggle This should be enabled by default Apple has also updated the Messages app interface to accommodate these changes So when you message someone with RCS encryption enabled, you will see a new lock icon in the chat thread, indicating that the conversation is encrypted. Android users will also see the same lock icon in their message threads. The lock icon will also appear on all iMessage threads, as iMessage has supported end-to-end encryption since 2011 Apple says that RCS end-to-end encryption will not actually ship as part of iOS 26.4 Instead, it's included in this beta for testing purposes, and Apple says it will be available in a future iOS 26 update Other than RCS encryption testing, iOS 26.4 Beta 2 makes a couple of other very small changes In the Accessibility menu in the Settings app, Apple has added a new toggle under Display and Text Size to reduce highlighting effects. This should remove some of the effects around the edges of buttons and sliders. In iOS 26.4 Beta 1, Apple updated the UI in the App Store to move the search bar back to the top of the Search tab and to integrate the Search tab into the rest of the bottom navigation bar instead of having it float off to the side by itself. In iOS 26.4 Beta 2, Apple has made that same change to the Games app. You can hit the link in the show notes for our full roundup of everything new in iOS 26.4 Beta 2, and we're expecting a public beta later this week. That wraps up another episode of 9to5Mac Daily. You can find all of the latest Apple news on 9to5Mac.com. Follow along with me on threads at Chance H. Miller. and we'll be back tomorrow for a new episode of 9to5Mac Daily.