AI on the App Store, more

Welcome to 9to5MacDaily for Thursday, May 14th, 2026. I'm your host, Chance Miller. We are sponsored this week by Bitwarden. Leading off today, Netflix keeps getting more expensive, and that's pushing more users to its ad-supported tier at a lower price. This week, alongside bragging about the booming ad-tier subscriptions, Netflix also announced that ads will be expanding to more places in its app. A few years ago, Netflix famously rejected the idea of an ad tier altogether, but it then changed its tune, likely due to continued price increases for the other plans and increased competition in the streaming industry. A large share of users are now opting for the more affordable ad plan, with Netflix revealing that over 250 million people around the globe are subscribed to the ad plan, up significantly from 94 million this time last year. But Netflix has bigger ad ambitions than just boosting its base of subscriptions. Netflix confirmed that it's bringing ads to two new spots in the Netflix app on iPhone and other platforms. Ads will start appearing in the new vertical video feed in the Netflix app, which first launched itself back in April. It's a way to view short clips from different TV shows and movies and to learn more about what you might want to watch on the service. Second, Netflix says that it's bringing ads to additional podcasts on the platform. These changes aim to boost Netflix's ad revenue even further, something that can be incredibly lucrative for the company as that subscriber base also continues to grow. Netflix remains the most popular and most successful streaming service around the world, but market saturation has slowed its growth And now that its proposed Warner Bros Discovery acquisition isn happening increasing ad revenue may become more central to Netflix Wall Street narrative Meanwhile, Apple TV remains the only major streaming service that doesn't yet offer an ad-supported tier at a lower price. The company, including EtiQ, has said that it won't rule out that happening in the future, but there's currently no indication that ads are coming to Apple TV any point in the near term. Next up today, price alone is likely to make the iPhone Fold or iPhone Ultra a somewhat niche product in Apple's lineup. But a new survey suggests there could be more interest than one might expect. A new survey from CNET representative of U.S. adults has been headlined by an interest in folding phones. According to the survey, around 14% of iPhone owners are motivated by a foldable iPhone design. Broadly speaking, the survey found that smartphone users aren't sufficiently impressed by new features and concepts to consider upgrading their phones, and only 12% are motivated by AI and 14% are motivated by foldables. CNET spends this as lukewarm interest in the iPhone Fold, but many people have said the number is actually way higher than they expected. There's expectation that the iPhone fold will indeed be a very niche product when it launches, but perhaps not as niche as we had thought based on this 14% number quoted by CNET. But of course, there's always a gap between interest level and actual purchases. And crucially, we don't know how much awareness respondents of the survey had of the likely price tag for the first foldable iPhone. That interest level could shrink dramatically once Apple officially confirms the rumors that the price will be at least And finally there no surprise at all when it comes to the two features people care about most when buying a phone price at 55 percent according to the survey and battery life at 52 percent, according to the survey. You can hit the link in the show notes to view the full survey on what smartphone owners care about when upgrading to new devices. We are sponsored this week again by Bitwarden. You can get started with the Bitwarden Password Manager today, including a free plan with unlimited passwords by hitting the link in the show notes or going to bitwarden.com. Bitwarden helps you generate and store strong, unique passwords and passkeys across all of your devices so you're not reusing the same login everywhere. It also keeps things simple with autofill for passwords, cards, and identities, plus vault health reports to flag weak or compromised passwords. With end-to-end encryption and built-in protection against phishing and data breaches, Bitwarden is trusted by over 10 million users and 50,000 businesses worldwide. So hit the link in the show notes or head to Bitwarden.com to get started today and help keep all of your accounts protected. My thanks to Bitwarden for sponsoring the show. Next update, a new report from The Information indicates that one thing set for WWDC could be an announcement regarding Apple's efforts to better incorporate AI agents into the App Store. The report says that this would allow Apple to benefit from the tech industry's hottest trend of AI agents while ensuring that the software in its App Store continues to play by the App Store rules. AI agents, which are capable of taking complex actions on behalf of users, prevent inherently complicated issues for Apple's strict regulations in the App Store, which are designed to prevent the apps from spreading malware avoiding App Store fees and committing other misbehavior For example some agents can spin up smaller apps on the spot to perform a wide variety of tasks which would be a problem for Apple if the agents do so after Apple had already approved the initial version of the app itself. Apple's efforts to incorporate AI agents into the App Store aims to reconcile those inconsistencies. The report says that specific details couldn't be learned, but Apple workers are designing a system to adhere to its standards of privacy and security and prevent the sort of free-for-all behavior that some agentic systems like OpenClaw have experienced. The report says that Apple might announce these new updates regarding AI agents on the App Store at WWDC next month, but it also seems possible the company isn't yet ready for that unveiling. Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed the popularity of AI agents when talking about Mac supply shortages during Apple's last quarterly earnings call. Many users are turning to the Mac Mini and the Mac Studio to help run those AI agents locally. But Apple doesn't want its lucrative app store business upended by this new agentic trend. And at the same time, however, iPhone users want to be able to take advantage of this new technology, so Apple has to find a balance somewhere. Overall, the information report is rather light on details, but the gist of it seems to be that Apple is working on ways to update App Store guidelines to allow for these AI agentic tools in a way that also protects users, protects privacy, and protects security. 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.