iPhone 18 Pro colors, more

Welcome to 9to5MacDaily for Monday, February 23rd, 2026. I'm your host, Chance Miller. We are sponsored this week by BenQ. Leading off today, we have rumors about what to expect from the iPhone 18 Pro in terms of colors. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is considering a new deep red color option for the 18 Pro this year. The current iPhone 17 Pro is available in a bright, beautiful cosmic orange color, which has been a huge hit, especially in China. A report from the Financial Times, for example, earlier this month, indicated that the cosmic orange color is one of the biggest factors driving iPhone users to update, again, especially in China. Given that, Gurman actually says that Cosmic Orange might stick around for the iPhone 18 Pro this fall, so it would be available in both a deep red and a Cosmic Orange color. The iPhone 17 Pro has a new all-aluminum unibody design, which gives Apple a lot more flexibility for what colors it can use on the Pro model iPhones. It's no longer limited by the material of the phone, like it was during the days of stainless steel and titanium, both of which are harder to color. Finally, Gurman also comments on the color options for the upcoming iPhone Fold. He reports that Apple is going to stay away from any sort of fun colors. Instead, we should just expect some sort of dark gray or black and a variation of white or light silver. This is likely because this is Apple's first ever foldable smartphone, and reducing the number of color options will help streamline manufacturing. We saw the same thing play out with the iPhone X, which only came in two colors versus the six colors of the iPhone 7 before it. Next up today, according to a new private cloud compute software release this week, Apple is starting to use M5 chips in private cloud compute servers. This is the infrastructure that powers some of Apple intelligence's features. In the software release there are references to something called Private Cloud Compute Agent Worker which runs a version of iOS with a new agentic architecture for serving AI requests iOS 26.4 also includes the code for interfacing with this private cloud compute architecture. The architecture runs on new hardware with a previously unknown J226C model number, again powered by the M5. Details here remain sparse, but it's evidence that Apple continues to refine its private cloud compute infrastructure ahead of more advanced Siri and Apple intelligence features As a refresher, Apple's private cloud compute infrastructure is the server-side extension of Apple intelligence that handles more complex AI tasks when they can't run entirely on device Apple has repeatedly touted the privacy benefits of this approach, with strict limits on data access and retention Apple says that user data is only used to fulfill the request and is never stored or made accessible to Apple. The system is also designed to be externally verifiable, allowing security researchers to inspect and validate its privacy claims. The upgrades to the M5 architecture come as historically Apple's private cloud compute servers have used the M2 Ultra chip. The M2 Ultra was first introduced in June 2023, followed by the M3 Ultra last year. Apple, however, has not updated its PCC architecture with those new M3 chips. There were also some reports that Apple planned to update its servers to M4 chips, but that doesn't ultimately appear to have come to fruition. The decision to jump to the M5 chip for this architecture also comes after Apple's deal with Google to use Gemini models to power Siri features. Apple is also now making some private cloud compute servers in a factory in Houston, Texas for the first time. All of this is to say that Apple is still heavily invested in the private cloud compute infrastructure, even as some rumors also suggest it might utilize Google servers for select Siri features. 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. Running out today, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified last week in what's viewed as a landmark court case around the mental health impact of social media. As part of that testimony, Zuckerberg revealed that he has reached out to Apple CEO Tim Cook to talk about the, quote, well-being of teens and kids. The trial itself was brought by New Mexico against Meta, saying the social media company failed to safeguard apps like Facebook and Instagram from online predators who targeted child users. The attorney general for New Mexico has said, quote, What we are really alleging is that Meta has created a dangerous product, a product that enables not only the targeting of children, but the exploitation of children in virtual spaces and in the real world, end quote. Experts have said the lawsuits resemble those brought against big tobacco in the 1990s due to the alleged harm the products can have on users and the efforts by tobacco companies to mislead the public about the negative effects. As reported by CNBC defense lawyers in the case last week asked Zuckerberg about an email exchange between him and Tim Cook in February of 2018 Zuckerberg said quote I thought there were opportunities that our company and Apple could be doing and I wanted to talk to Tim about it. I care about the well-being of teens and kids who are using our services, end quote. There aren't any additional details about the content of the exchange between Cook and Zuckerberg. The two are widely believed to have a contentious relationship, though an exchange in February of 2018 predates some of the nastier public back and forth. The public spat between the two largely began in March of 2018, when Cook made multiple public comments about Facebook's privacy controversies. Additionally, this is the second time that Cook's name has come up as part of this court case. In an email discovered earlier this month, Zuckerberg suggested that Meta should conduct less research into how its platforms harm users, citing Apple as the model to follow. Ultimately, one of the biggest disagreements between Apple and Meta centers around app age verification. Meta believes that age verification should be the responsibility of platform owners like Apple and Google, not on social media companies. Apple, meanwhile, believes the responsibility of age verification should largely fall to developers. It believes the right place to address age verification to prioritize data minimization is on a per-app level, not on the market space level Apple has used the example of how alcohol sales in a mall require ID verification at the store level rather than asking every single visitor to the mall for their date of birth So far, however, Apple's argument has been a losing argument in many states around the United States, where age verification implementations have been forced into effect by legislation, which Apple has been forced to comply with. That wraps up another episode of 9to5Mac Daily. As always, 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. Thank you.