From Siri AI to iOS27: Everything Apple announced at WWDC 2026
Table of contents Tim Cook’s final keynote as CEO All the major announcements from Apple’s WWDC 2026 What developers are getting When can you get all of these? Apple just wrapped its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2026 keynote, and it was one of the most significant in the company’s history. Tim Cook took the stage one last time as CEO, and Apple used the moment to finally deliver on a promise it made two years ago: a completely rebuilt Siri. The tech giant also announced iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27 “Golden Gate,” watchOS 27, visionOS 27, and tvOS 27. No new hardware was shown. This was a software-only event, and AI was the whole story. Here is everything Apple announced, broken down by platform. Tim Cook’s final keynote as CEO This was Tim Cook’s last WWDC keynote as Apple’s chief executive. Cook steps down as CEO on August 31, 2026, and John Ternus, Apple’s head of hardware engineering, takes over on September 1. Cook moves to the role of executive chairman. Ternus did not appear on stage during the keynote, which many observers found notable given the transition. Software chief Craig Federighi kicked off the announcements by laying out Apple’s three focus areas for this year: platform improvements, trust and safety, and a major push forward for Apple Intelligence. Federighi was blunt about the privacy angle from the start: “We believe privacy in AI is non-negotiable. Data is only used to execute your request, and outside experts can continue to verify this promise at any time.” This keynote carried some extra weight. Apple promised a smarter, context-aware Siri at WWDC 2024 and did not deliver it for nearly two years. In May 2026, the company also sought approval for a $250 million class-action settlement over those undelivered Siri features, covering roughly 36 million iPhone 16 and iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max units sold between June 2024 and March 2025. Eligible owners could receive between $25 and $95 per device. Apple denied wrongdoing. Today’s keynote was Apple’s chance to show it has finally followed through. All the major announcements from Apple’s WWDC 2026 1. Siri AI: Apple is calling the new assistant “Siri AI,” and it is a complete rebuild. VP Mike Rockwell introduced it as “the biggest overhaul since Siri launched in 2011.” The new version is powered by Apple’s next-generation Foundation Models, which Apple says were built in deep collaboration with Google using Gemini. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple is paying roughly $1 billion a year for a 1.2 trillion-parameter Gemini model, and The Information reported that the heaviest queries route to Google Cloud, which runs on Nvidia Blackwell B200 GPUs, because running that model inside Apple’s Private Cloud Compute was too slow at scale. Apple did not confirm those numbers on stage, so treat them as credible reporting rather than official figures. What Siri AI can do: Dedicated Siri app: There is now a standalone Siri app across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro. Your chat history syncs privately across all your devices via iCloud and Private Cloud Compute. You can set conversations to expire after a set period. Conversational mode: You can go back and forth with Siri in a natural, multi-turn conversation for research, planning, and brainstorming. Apple demoed asking Siri to pull up the FIFA 2026 World Cup schedule, then plan a viewing party and suggest dishes from both competing countries. On-screen and personal context awareness: Siri can see what is on your screen and act on it. It can access your emails, messages, files, and photos to give you relevant answers. Apple demoed asking about a location seen in an Instagram post and getting directions instantly. Visual Intelligence: This feature, first introduced with iPhone 16, becomes a dedicated “Siri mode” inside the Camera app. You can point your camera at a restaurant bill to split it through Wallet, scan a poster to add an event to your calendar, or identify nutrition information on a food package. Customisable voice: You can now adjust Siri’s pace and expressiveness beyond the existing preset voices. Image source: @theapplehub on X Cross-platform: Siri AI is available on watchOS, visionOS, CarPlay, and AirPods. Mac integration: On Mac, Siri is built into Spotlight (Command+Space) and accessible via Ctrl+click on images, text, and videos. There is a dedicated Mac app and a new monochrome menu-bar icon. Apple demoed selecting three presentations and asking Siri to compare them. Writing tools: Highlight any text and Siri will suggest improvements. “Write with Siri” can learn how you communicate with specific contacts and adapt accordingly. System-wide automatic proofreading works even inside third-party apps. On iOS, you access Siri AI by swiping down on the Dynamic Island, which shows a “Search or Ask” prompt. Siri AI launches in English first and expands to more languages later. Some features will have daily usage limits, with higher limits for iCloud+ subscribers. Important: Siri AI will NOT be available on iPhone or iPad in the European Union at launch, due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Federighi said Apple is “deeply disappointed” and that there is currently no timeline for Siri AI arriving on iOS or iPadOS in the EU. EU users will still get Siri AI on Mac, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro. Siri AI is also unavailable in China while Apple works through regulatory requirements. 2. iOS 27: iOS 27 is built around two things: significant performance gains and AI features woven into the apps you use every day. Performance improvements: Up to 30% faster app launches Up to 70% faster loading of new photos in your camera roll Up to 80% faster AirDrop transfers, Mail loading, and Apple Music playback start Faster Wi-Fi-to-cellular handoff when you leave a network A modified CPU scheduler that makes older iPhones feel faster iOS 27 runs on every iPhone that supported iOS 26, so iPhone 11 owners and second-generation iPhone SE owners benefit too. No devices were dropped. Rebuilt search: Apple rebuilt the foundation powering
Read MoreThe CBN has a big plan for payments by 2028. 13 things worth knowing.
Nigeria leads on payments and fintech in Africa, and that isn’t a conversation that needs an argument. It’s anchored on world-class payments system visions and the rigorous implementation that comes with them. The Central Bank of Nigeria has been at this for almost twenty years, and it’s genuinely good at it. The first vision came in the mid-2000s; the last one launched in November 2022, and between them they took a country where most adults had no bank account, and cash settled almost everything, and turned it into one of the few places on earth where you can send money to a stranger and watch it land in seconds. We built a real financial identity in the Bank Verification Number (BVN), an agent network of close to two million touchpoints, and an instant-payment system the rest of the continent studies, and we now move well over a quadrillion Naira a year through electronic channels. PSV 2028 is the next installment, and it’s ambitious, which is the polite way of saying the CBN has handed itself roughly thirty months to deliver a list that would stretch a far simpler country. There’s plenty to like, a few things I’d argue with gently, and a couple of things I wish were in it that aren’t. Thirteen points, in that order. The good 1. The National Payment Stack is the real deal The most important thing in the document is as flashy as the foundation of the Burj Khalifa, deep and invisible. The NPS is NIBSS’s full rebuild of the national rails, and it’s already gone live, with its first real transaction running between PalmPay and Wema Bank in November 2025, and it’s now rolling out to the rest of the banks (pages 34 and 42). It replaces the NIBSS Instant Payments engine that’s carried us since 2011 and was processing more than nine billion transfers a year before it ran out of room, and being built on ISO 20022, it finally gives us richer payment data, automated reconciliation, and the international compatibility we’ve lacked. If PSV 2028 shipped nothing else, this would earn its keep. 2. The CBN builds policy with the industry This is the strength most people don’t appreciate, and it’s a big reason these documents are worth taking seriously. When the CBN wants to set national policy, it convenes the Nigerian experts who actually run the rails, the banks, the fintechs, the switches, the development partners, and the subject-matter experts, and it builds the thing with them rather than handing down an edict and daring everyone to comply. PSV 2028 says as much in its own acknowledgements, crediting financial institutions, industry associations, and fintech innovators for shaping the document (page 10), and anyone who’s sat through these working sessions knows how real that process is. When the industry pushed back on the automated-AML timeline, the compliance window was stretched from twelve months to eighteen, and when operators argued the 10-meter POS geo-fence was impossible to hit accurately, the CBN widened it to 70. A regulator that consults and then actually adjusts is rarer than it sounds, and it’s a big part of why Nigerian payments policy tends to stick once it lands. 3. Fraud and cybersecurity are finally first-class, and the work has already left the page For years, fraud was the thing everyone complained about, and everyone refused to kill. PSV 2028 puts it at the center, with AI-driven monitoring and predictive analytics (page 63), a stronger Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) posture (page 38), a national security operations center, and an industry fraud-intelligence sharing platform (pages 39 and 95 to 103). Why it matters is well documented, because NIBSS data shows fraud losses jumped from about ₦11.6 billion in 2020 to 52.3 billion in 2024. And unlike most vision-document promises, this one’s already moving across more than one CBN department at once. The CBN’s Banking Supervision Department issued the baseline standards for automated AML in March 2026, giving deposit banks 18 months and other institutions 24 months to run AI and machine-learning monitoring with annual accuracy testing. The Payments System Supervision Department ordered GPS geo-tagging on every POS terminal layered on device binding and a BVN fraud watchlist on the instant-payment side. Whatever you make of any single rule, the direction’s crystal clear and it’s happening now. 4. The BVN, and the reason NIN exists at all Give the CBN its due on identity. The BVN sits under more than 320 million accounts and became the backbone of digital Know Your Customer (KYC), and it’s the proof of concept that made the National Identification Number (NIN) program credible, so the two are a sequence and not rivals (pages 32 and 75 to 76). The document puts NIN coverage past 122 million as of late 2025, and it’s refreshingly blunt that enrollment is short of funding and field kits, which is the real reason it still trails the BVN. That candor matters, because the forced bank-account-to-NIN linkage has itself been flagged as a risk that could push people back into the informal system if the identity rails can’t keep pace. 5. The compliance-automation ambition is genuinely modern PSV 2028 wants a national RegTech and SupTech capability, a machine-readable CBN rulebook in JSON and XML, and 90% of institutions feeding automated compliance data to the CBN by 2028 (page 63). This isn’t blue-sky talk, because the automated-AML baseline standards now in train are already the first concrete move toward supervision that reads structured data in near real time instead of chasing quarterly paper returns. Very few central banks anywhere have committed to this in writing, and it’s the sort of capability that compounds quietly for a decade. 6. Consumer protection and inclusion, which I wish ranked higher The track record here is real, with the service-level rules that force ATM chargebacks to clear within a day and failed POS reversals within three (page 32), and formal inclusion did climb from 56% in 2020 to
Read MoreMTN revives streaming ambitions with new pan-African platform
MTN Group, Africa’s largest telecoms company, has launched MTN One TV, a streaming platform that gives the operator another shot at Africa’s video entertainment market nearly a decade after its South Africa-focused FrontRow service failed to gain traction. In a Monday statement, the company said MTN One TV will offer a mix of free-to-view, advertising-supported, pay-per-view, and subscription-based content models depending on local market conditions. The launch marks MTN’s most ambitious attempt yet to build a pan-African content business, one that could immediately tap into the group’s 307.2 million subscribers reported at the end of 2025. While the company has not disclosed which markets will receive MTN One TV first, it operates across 16 African countries, giving the platform distribution scale that few regional streaming rivals can match. The platform, which combines live television, local content, and international programming, will be rolled out progressively across MTN’s markets as the company seeks to capture a larger share of Africa’s growing digital entertainment economy. “The proposition is designed to give customers greater choice in how they watch content, with viewing models that may vary by market and can include free-to-view content, advertising-funded experiences, pay-as-you-watch access, and subscription offerings,” MTN said “Depending on local availability, customers may also be able to pay through airtime, Mobile Money, and other locally supported payment methods, helping to reduce common barriers to streaming access.” The move reflects a broader push by African telecom operators to expand beyond connectivity into digital services, content, and fintech. In December 2025, Vodacom launched the Value News Network (VNN) as part of a broader digital engagement strategy, and Safaricom has continued to deepen the integration of content and digital services. MTN One TV extends that evolution into video entertainment, using the group’s network reach, mobile money infrastructure, and billing relationships to address barriers that have historically constrained streaming adoption across Africa, including payment friction, affordability, and limited access to international credit cards. The launch also comes as Africa’s streaming landscape undergoes significant change. Showmax, the subscription streaming service previously operated by Canal+-owned MultiChoice, shut down in April as the company shifted focus to DStv Stream, its linear over-the-top (OTT) offering, creating an opening for telecom operators seeking to bundle content, connectivity, and payments into a single ecosystem. “Entertainment is increasingly becoming an important gateway to digital participation,” Selorm Adadevoh, MTN Group Chief Commercial, Strategy and Transformation Officer, said. “Through MTN One TV, we are leveraging the scale of our connectivity, fintech, and digital capabilities to make relevant content more accessible while creating new opportunities for Africa’s creative and digital economies. This is aligned with our ambition to deliver digital solutions for Africa’s progress.” The launch builds on MTN’s partnership with video software company Synamedia in April 2025 to develop a pan-African streaming platform initially targeted at Nigeria before expanding across its footprint. MTN is no stranger to streaming. In December 2014, the operator launched FrontRow, later rebranded as VU, in South Africa. It was a Netflix-style video-on-demand service offering movies and television shows through subscriptions and pay-per-view rentals. The company later cut prices from R179 ($10.85) to R99 ($6) monthly in an effort to compete with Netflix and Showmax. The service ultimately failed to scale and was discontinued in 2017 as competition intensified and consumer adoption remained limited. In 2018, MTN launched MusicTime, a music streaming platform that gained modest traction across several markets by allowing users to stream and download music while managing data usage. Unlike FrontRow, however, MusicTime remained an audio product and never evolved into a broader entertainment platform. MTN also discontinued Ayoba, its instant messaging app, in March to consolidate its digital services ecosystem under its Ambition 2030 Strategy. In 2021, MTN partnered with South African broadcaster eMedia on eVOD, providing technology and distribution support, though the service remained eMedia’s product rather than an MTN-owned platform. Those earlier efforts highlight the challenges of building sustainable streaming businesses in African markets, where content licencing costs, limited broadband penetration, and low consumer spending power have historically constrained growth. MTN One TV highlights the company’s first attempt to build a scaled, pan-African video entertainment proposition by combining content distribution, mobile payments, and telecom infrastructure. The company said the rollout will occur in phases, with content partnerships and viewing experiences tailored to individual markets before being consolidated under the MTN One TV brand over time.
Read MoreShuttlers brings bus routes to Google Maps after hitting 10 million trips
Shuttlers, the Nigerian shared mobility startup, has integrated its bus routes into Google Maps Transit, bringing its services to the navigation platform after completing more than 10 million trips since launching in 2016. The integration brings Shuttlers’ scheduled routes into Google Maps’ transit layer, allowing commuters to discover routes and book seats directly within Google Maps while navigating Nigeria’s major cities. The move reflects how private mobility operators are increasingly filling gaps left by overstretched public transport systems in African cities. According to the World Bank, African cities are about 29% more expensive overall than cities at similar income levels, with residents paying roughly double the global average for transport. In Lagos, a study by the Danne Institute for Research found that the average commuter spends about 2.21 hours in transit daily, equivalent to roughly 11 hours in a five-day workweek. Private mobility operators have emerged as structured alternatives to informal buses and increasingly expensive ride-hailing services. “For millions of professionals, commuting is still unpredictable, exhausting and expensive,” said Damilola Olokesusi, CEO and co-founder of Shuttlers. “We have spent the last 10 years building technology and operational infrastructure that makes daily transportation more dependable for commuters, businesses that employ them, and the fleet operators who power our network.” Shuttlers said it integrated its route data, scheduling systems, and real-time operations with Google’s technical requirements to join Google Transit. Founded in 2016, Shuttlers operates a scheduled bus service for professionals and corporate employees across Nigeria’s major cities. The company said it currently serves 30,000 active users across more than 1,000 itineraries and runs a fleet of more than 430 buses daily across Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. Shuttlers said it has completed more than 10 million trips since launch, maintains a 99% trip completion rate and a 99.94% incident-free record, and operates both a Business-to-Business-to-Consumer (B2B2C) model, allowing companies to fully or partially subsidise employee transport, and a direct-to-consumer option for individual commuters. “Reliable transit information helps people navigate cities more confidently and efficiently,” Olumide Balogun, Director for West Africa at Google, said. “As more Nigerians adopt digital tools for everyday mobility, integrations like these help make trusted transportation easier to discover and access.” As it expands its mobility offering, Shuttlers said it is integrating compressed natural gas (CNG) and electric buses into its fleet as part of efforts to reduce emissions from urban transport operations, with the company estimating emissions reductions of up to 60% compared to diesel alternatives. In April 2025, the company announced that it had introduced 20 CNG buses to its fleet. In 2023, Shuttlers raised a $4 million equity round led by Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures, following a previous $1.6 million seed round in 2021, led by VestedWorld, which also participated in the raise alongside SheEquity, CMC 21, Alsa, EchoVC, and VestedWorld.
Read MoreAions Ventures backs South Africa’s climate-tech ambition with $6 million fund
Aions Ventures, a South African venture capital firm, believes the country’s next billion-dollar startup will emerge from climate, energy or water innovation rather than fintech. The firm has backed that conviction with a new R100 million ($6 million) seed fund. Aions Ventures CEO Kerryn Campion told TechCabal that the Johannesburg-based company has launched Aions Seed Fund I to support early-stage startups developing solutions in climate technology, energy innovation, water sustainability and the broader digital economy. For years, African venture capital has been dominated by fintech. But a growing group of investors believes the continent’s next breakout company will emerge from climate, energy or water technology. As South Africa battles energy insecurity, water shortages and ageing infrastructure, Aions Ventures is betting that solving these challenges could create startups capable of scaling across Africa and other emerging markets. The fund includes R60 million ($ 3 million) allocated through the High Impact Seed Fund of Funds (HISFoF), a R300 million (R18 million) initiative managed by the SA SME Fund and backed by the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA). TIA has committed a further R40 million ($2.5million), bringing the fund’s total capital to R100 million ($6 million). As software and fintech markets mature, Aions sees growing investment potential in sectors such as climate technology, energy innovation and water sustainability. “South Africa’s biggest constraints are now becoming our biggest markets,” said Campion, arguing that challenges such as energy insecurity and water scarcity have become major cost centres for households and businesses, creating opportunities for technology-driven solutions. The investment reflects a broader shift as investors increasingly channel capital into climate-tech and energy-transition businesses. According to Campion, startups that make energy more reliable, reduce water losses and help businesses adapt to climate pressures are becoming more attractive investment targets. For South Africa, years of load shedding and growing concerns over water security have created an opportunity to develop solutions with export potential. “If a solution can work here, where there are infrastructure constraints, affordability challenges, municipal complexity and grid limitations, it can definitely work across Africa and other emerging markets,” she said. Campion believes the next South African unicorn is unlikely to emerge from another payments app or digital wallet. “It will likely come from a company solving a major infrastructure challenge in a way that can be replicated across the continent,” she stated. The fund also aims to address a persistent weakness in South Africa’s startup ecosystem: the shortage of capital available between seed stage and institutional growth funding. “Too many promising South African startups stall before they reach scale,” Campion said. “This fund backs founders earlier and gives them the support they need to build businesses ready for follow-on investment.” Aions has already backed startups including Delivery Ka Speed, a logistics and delivery company, and SpaceSalad Studios, a gaming startup. For founders, the value extends beyond funding. “Aions Ventures encouraged us to think beyond immediate opportunities and focus on building a scalable business,” said Thabo Tsolo, Managing Director of SpaceSalad Studios. “Their support has helped us become more disciplined as we prepare for the next stage of growth.” The launch aligns with broader efforts by institutions such as the Technology Innovation Agency and SA SME Fund to close South Africa’s commercialisation gap and expand access to early-stage funding.
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The Next Wave: Why $215 million went to Spiro
Cet article est aussi disponible en français <!– In partnership with –> First published 07 June, 2026 African electric mobility has entered an interesting and quite frankly, a different phase. For years, investors funded the sector like a technology market. The focus was on founders, vehicle design, battery chemistry and the expectation that electric motorcycles would eventually replace petrol bikes. Today, capital is flowing according to a different logic. Investors are no longer asking who builds the best motorcycle. They are asking who owns the infrastructure that every motorcycle needs to operate. Spiro’s latest $215 million equity raise, led by Impact Fund Denmark and Equitane, captures that shift. The round is the largest ever secured by an African two-wheeled EV company and brings the company’s total funding to over $500 million. It follows a $50 million debt facility from Afreximbank and another $100 million funding round in late 2025. At the same time, several technically capable EV startups continue to struggle to secure even $5 million in seed funding. The contrast reveals how investors view the market now. Capital is not concentrated around superior engineering but on infrastructure ownership. In this case, the economics start with the rider since the most important figure in African electric mobility is not the investor or the manufacturer but a boda boda (two-wheeler taxi) rider. In Kenya, Uganda and other markets, commercial riders typically earn between $10 and $15 a day. Fuel often absorbs 40% to 60% of that income. Any company that wants to scale must solve that problem before anything else. Many EV startups approached the market by selling electric motorcycles directly to riders. The challenge was that the economics never worked particularly well. A lithium-ion battery accounts for roughly 40% to 50% of the cost of an electric motorcycle. Passing that cost to riders makes the upfront purchase price difficult to justify. Get smarter about Francophone Africa with our newsletter, Francophone Weekly—the startups, tech policies, and institutions building the pipelines for ecosystem growth. Subscribe Charging presents a second problem considering a commercial rider earns money only when moving. Waiting one to four hours for a battery to recharge means lost trips and lost income. A charging station may work for a private vehicle owner, but is a tougher proposition for someone whose motorcycle serves as a daily business vehicle. Spiro’s answer was to separate the battery from the motorcycle. Under its battery-as-a-service model, riders purchase the motorcycle while subscribing to the battery network. The company says this reduces the motorcycle’s price to roughly 40% below that of a comparable petrol bike. When power runs low, riders exchange depleted batteries for fully charged ones in under 2 minutes. Daily operating costs can fall below $2, producing savings of up to $2 per day and reducing mobility costs by around 40%. This shows that the appeal is not really that difficult to understand. The model works because what saves riders money also creates predictable demand and turns each motorcycle into a recurring customer rather than a one time sale. Spiro looks less like a EV company and more like a utility This distinction sits at the centre of the funding story. Look at it this way: a conventional motorcycle manufacturer earns revenue when a vehicle is sold. The relationship with the customer largely ends at the point of purchase. Spiro’s model extends far beyond the initial sale because every motorcycle added to the network becomes a long-term consumer of battery swaps. Revenue is generated not only when the bike enters service but also every time the rider returns for energy. That difference may sound subtle but in practice, it changes the type of capital a company can attract. The investors behind Spiro are not typical venture capital firms chasing software-style growth. Impact Fund Denmark, for example, deploys capital on behalf of Danish pension savers. These investors spend their time assessing ports, power projects, transport assets and utilities. They are accustomed to businesses that require large upfront investments and produce steady cash flows over many years. A battery swapping network fits comfortably within that framework. Spiro claims it has deployed 100,000 electric vehicles, built 2,500 smart battery swapping stations, and completed more than 30 million battery swaps. Those figures are notable not simply because of their scale, but because they resemble the operating metrics of infrastructure networks rather than those of a typical startup. Next Wave continues after this ad. We’re thrilled to announce the official theme for Moonshot 2026: “Courage & Conviction: Building for a New World.” This year, we’re calling on the African tech scene to back bold ideas and dig deep to build an ecosystem that solves African problems on a global scale. The continent’s most ambitious founders, investors, LPs, operators, creatives, and policymakers will converge at Moonshot 2026 to chart Africa’s next era. You don’t want to be left out. Secure Your Spot! The real asset is the network The easiest way to understand Spiro’s position is to stop thinking about motorcycles and start thinking about telecom towers. A telecom operator with the largest tower network enjoys advantages that go far beyond handset quality. Coverage becomes the product. Battery swapping networks operate similarly. Once thousands of swap stations are distributed across major cities, convenience becomes difficult to replicate. Riders naturally gravitate towards the network with the greatest coverage because access to energy determines how much income they can generate each day. A competitor cannot solve that problem by producing a slightly lighter motorcycle or a more efficient motor. It must first spend tens of millions of dollars building an alternative network of physical stations. This is the central logic of infrastructure investing: scale makes competition more expensive. As networks grow, the cost of replicating them rises, which is why investors often prefer backing a company that has already achieved scale over one that is still proving its model. Governments have reasons to support the model Large funding rounds rarely happen without some degree of political alignment. Across Sub-Saharan Africa,
Read MoreWhat to expect at Apple’s WWDC 2026 keynote on Monday
Table of contents When and how to watch the Apple WWDC 2026 What to expect at the Apple WWDC 2026 When will you actually get these features? One more thing: Tim Cook’s farewell Apple’s WWDC 2026 keynote will be held on Monday, June 8, at 10 a.m. PT (6:00 p.m. WAT). If you have ever skipped an Apple software event because it felt like a routine update show, this is the year to pay attention. Two things make this year’s Apple WWDC different from any keynote in the past decade. One, it is Tim Cook’s last keynote as Apple CEO. He announced in April that he would step down on September 1, with John Ternus taking the top job. Second, Apple has a lot to prove in AI. The company promised a smarter, more personal Siri back in 2024, advertised it heavily alongside the iPhone 16, and then repeatedly delayed it, resulting in a $250 million settlement. WWDC 2026 is where Apple has to show the rebuild is done. Here is everything you can expect to see. When and how to watch the Apple WWDC 2026 The keynote starts Monday, June 8, at 10 a.m. PT (6:00 p.m. WAT). Here is what that looks like in your time zone: 1 pm ET (US East Coast) 6 pm BST (UK) 6 pm WAT (Nigeria and West Africa) 7 pm CEST (Central Europe) You can watch it live on Apple.com, the Apple TV app, or Apple’s YouTube channel. Apple pre-records its WWDC keynotes, so there is no live Q&A. The Platforms State of the Union, which is more developer-focused, follows at 1 p.m. PT on the same day. WWDC runs from June 8 through June 12. What to expect at the Apple WWDC 2026 1. The new Siri: This is the centrepiece of the whole event. Apple is overhauling Siri from the ground up, and for the first time, it will work like a proper AI chatbot. Powered by Google Gemini Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in November 2025 that Apple licenced a custom 1.2-trillion-parameter Gemini model from Google at roughly $1 billion per year. Apple and Google confirmed the partnership in a joint statement in January 2026. The deal means Apple’s new Siri runs on a model that is eight times larger than the one Apple built on its own. Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian confirmed the arrangement publicly at Google Cloud Next in April 2026, saying the companies are building “the next generation of Apple Foundation Models based on Gemini technology.” The financial terms and model size figures come from Bloomberg reporting, not from either company officially. A dedicated Siri app Siri is getting its own standalone app across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It works like ChatGPT or Gemini: text and voice input, back-and-forth conversation, and saved chat history that syncs via iCloud. You can set history to expire after 30 days, a year, or never. The interface defaults to a dark theme and includes a button for uploading images and documents. The Dynamic Island glow When you activate Siri on your iPhone, the Dynamic Island will expand and glow. Swiping down from the top centre of the screen pulls up a “Search or Ask” bar that replaces Spotlight search. You can swipe down further to open a full conversation, which looks similar to an iMessage thread, with mini cards for weather, calendar entries, and notes appearing inline. Context awareness and app actions This is what Apple actually promised in 2024 and never shipped. The new Siri is expected to: Read what is on your screen and respond to it Access your emails, messages, calendar, contacts, and photos to give you personalised answers Take actions inside and across apps, such as booking a calendar event or sending a message, based on a single request Handle multi-step instructions in one sentence You choose your AI model A new Extensions system will let you pick which AI handles Apple Intelligence features. The options are ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude. Each can have its own voice, so you know which model answered. This ends OpenAI’s exclusivity on the iPhone. If you never change your settings, you will be routed to Gemini by default. Important: This is a preview, not a full launch Gurman has reported Apple is still labelling the new Siri a “beta” internally. Developer builds include a toggle to switch back to the old Siri. Apple may put some features behind a waitlist when iOS 27 ships in September. In February 2026, Apple engineers working on the iOS 26.5 test build reported that not all features were working reliably. Set your expectations accordingly. 2. iOS 27: Think of iOS 27 as a clean-up release. In the same way Apple released Mac OS X Snow Leopard in 2009, mostly to fix things rather than add features, iOS 27 is focused on making your iPhone faster and more reliable. iOS 26 shipped with complaints about overheating, battery drain, keyboard failures, UI glitches, and slow animations. iOS 27 is built to address that. Liquid Glass gets refined Apple is not removing its Liquid Glass design from iOS 27. The look introduced in iOS 26 remains, but Apple is adjusting the transparency and contrast to improve readability. There will reportedly be a system-wide slider you can use to dial back the effect. Tab bars in apps like Music, Podcasts, and Apple TV will also get updated. AI features are spreading across apps Apple Intelligence is expanding into more built-in apps: Camera: Visual Intelligence now appears in the Camera app as its own mode. You will be able to scan a nutrition label straight into the Health app or scan a phone number into Contacts. Photos: New generative editing tools called Extend, Enhance, and Reframe are coming, though Gurman says some may not make the final cut if testing stays inconsistent. Shortcuts: You will be able to create shortcuts by describing what you want in plain language. Safari: A new feature called Organise Tabs will
Read MoreEric Asuma on childhood, ambition, and refusing to sell Kenyan Wall Street
There is a type of entrepreneurs who start a company because they have seen a gap in the market. Then there is the kind who start one because they are trying to make sense of the world around them. When I met Eric Asuma, founder of The Kenyan Wall Street, he struck me as belonging to the second group. He grew up watching his parents run small businesses, where every shilling mattered, and every decision carried far-reaching consequences. Long before he became a founder, he had a front-row seat to the realities of building a company from scratch. He credits his parents with instilling the discipline and resilience that would later shape his own entrepreneurial journey. In 2014, while working at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), he started The Kenyan Wall Street as a side project. At first, it was little more than a hobby—a platform to explain markets and provide investors with information that was often difficult to find or understand. More than a decade later, that hobby has evolved into Wall Street Africa, a financial intelligence business spanning media, data, and events, serving a growing community of investors across the continent. Over a video call, we talked about growing up around entrepreneurs, the early days of building a financial media company when few believed there was a market for it, the evolution from content to intelligence, and why he believes Africa’s investment ecosystem still suffers from an information problem. We also discussed legacy. Asuma says he wants to be remembered not simply as the founder of a company, but as someone who built critical infrastructure that helped investors better understand markets. The future, he says, looks promising. But like many founders, he seems less interested in the destination than in the work of building. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What experiences from your childhood shaped the way you think about money, opportunity, and economic mobility today? It mostly comes down to upbringing. I grew up in a household where entrepreneurship wasn’t an abstract idea; it was daily life. My parents ran small businesses, and I watched closely how those businesses were started, sustained, and sometimes rebuilt after setbacks. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was formative. That environment shapes your thinking. You learn early that resources are limited, but imagination is not. You also learn that effort compounds slowly, often invisibly, before it produces any meaningful outcome. My parents didn’t frame this as a philosophy; it was simply how they lived. You start something small, you keep going, you adjust, you try again. What stayed with me most was the discipline behind entrepreneurship. Nothing was wasted—not time, not opportunity, not effort. That mindset creates a respect for work itself, regardless of scale. We came from a very humble background, so economic mobility was never assumed. It was something you had to actively work toward. But my parents instilled a belief: if you put in the work and stay persistent, opportunities eventually show up. Not always in predictable ways, but they do arrive. That belief has influenced how I think about building businesses and approaching setbacks. Even today, I return to that early conditioning: start small, stay consistent, and trust that compounding will eventually do its work. Before the Kenyan Wall Street existed, what did you believe was missing from Africa’s financial and business information ecosystem? It was less a grand idea and more an observation that accumulated over time. I was working at the stock exchange, with a front-row seat to how information moved—or didn’t move—through the system. What struck me was how fragmented and manual it all was. Africa’s markets had returns, activity, and real economic significance, but the information infrastructure lagged far behind more developed markets. Data wasn’t always accessible in real time. Sometimes it wasn’t structured at all. Even basic market functions—bond pricing, yields, calculations—were often handled through separate spreadsheets maintained by different institutions. There was no unified system of truth. Yet fixed income dominates African capital markets, accounting for more than 70% of activity in some markets. While global attention often gravitates toward equities, the real engine of the system was happening in a relatively opaque corner of finance. Institutions were making multi-million-dollar decisions with limited automation and inconsistent data pipelines. It was not a lack of intelligence; it was a lack of infrastructure. This shaped the direction of what we eventually built at the intersection of capital markets intelligence, financial media, and institutional tools. The thinking evolved from a media-first approach into something broader: you cannot build effective markets without first building the information layer that supports them. What problem were you trying to solve when you launched The Kenyan Wall Street, and how has that vision evolved into Wall Street Africa? When I started what later became The Kenyan Wall Street around 2014, it wasn’t originally a business idea, more a side project. I was working at the stock exchange, and friends constantly asked how they could access market information. That question kept coming up, and it exposed a gap I had taken for granted while inside the system. Inside the exchange, I also noticed something unusual: information flow was not automated. In more developed markets, announcements move through tightly integrated systems; everyone receives them simultaneously. In our case, information could physically arrive at the exchange and sit at reception for hours or even days before reaching the broader market. That delay, in finance, is not just inefficient; it is material. I started casually sharing snippets of information online. At first, it was curiosity-driven. I didn’t think of it as a product. But something interesting happened: the audience expanded quickly. I began receiving messages from investors—some in Dubai, others in Europe—asking for deeper insights into specific companies. These were not casual readers; they were institutional actors making real allocation decisions. I resisted the idea that this could become a formal business. I wasn’t trained as an analyst. But demand kept growing, and the feedback became consistent: build a
Read MoreNigeria licenced 46 telecom challengers to rival MTN and Airtel. Few have taken off.
Every morning before Ewoma Okweni logs in to work from her apartment in Ajah, a suburban neighbourhood in Lagos, she calculates how much internet bandwidth the day will cost her. An audit officer at PwC Nigeria, Okweni spends between eight and ten hours online daily on days she works from home, moving between cloud-hosted spreadsheets, PowerPoint files, video meetings, and Chrome windows that multiply endlessly across her screen. Twenty gigabytes of data disappear in three or four days. She buys a weekly ₦5,000 ($3.65) bundle because, for her, the monthly plans no longer make economic sense for the kind of work she does. “I have like thirty tabs open on Chrome, multiple PowerPoint files open,” she told TechCabal in a telephone conversation. And I work on the cloud. Whatever you do has to be saved on the cloud.” On weekends, the data drain continues with Netflix, Instagram, and YouTube. Yet despite rising costs and persistent frustrations, Okweni has never seriously considered leaving MTN for one of Nigeria’s new Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)–telecom providers that offer voice, data, and messaging services by leasing network capacity from established operators. The prospect feels like more hassle than it is worth: SIM registration, identity verification, and uncertainty over whether the service will be reliable enough to justify the switch. “I don’t think I really need another one,” she said. “And I’ll be concerned if they can maintain the service over time.” That quiet hesitation may explain one of the strangest stories unfolding inside Nigeria’s telecom sector. In October 2025, Vitel Wireless became the first MVNO to officially launch operations in Nigeria, entering the market with the promise of innovation, flexibility, and new competition in an industry long dominated by MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile. Between November 2025, when the NCC began tracking the company’s active subscriber base, and March 2026, when the latest industry data was released, the company recorded no active subscribers. The only measurable growth the NCC has recorded has come through mobile number portability. The number of subscribers porting into Vitel’s network rose from five in November 2025 to 17 in March, suggesting a broader struggle to attract users at scale. However, Vitel Wireless disputes the picture painted by the NCC’s subscriber figures. “Vitel Wireless currently has the fifth-largest mobile subscriber base in Nigeria, although it remains well behind long-established operators such as MTN, Airtel, and Glo, which have operated in the market for more than three decades,” Chudi Nwabueze, the company’s chief operating officer, told TechCabal in an emailed response. For Vitel, the experience since launch has reinforced both the opportunity and difficulty of operating as an MVNO in Nigeria. “One of the biggest lessons for Vitel Wireless has been that Nigeria’s telecom market still presents enormous opportunities for customer-focused MVNOs despite being largely dominated by established MNOs,” Nwabueze added. “The market is highly competitive, but there is still significant room for operators that can innovate around affordability, service delivery, and market penetration.” The gap between Vitel’s claims and the NCC’s subscriber data highlights a broader challenge in Nigeria’s nascent MVNO market: accurately measuring commercial traction. While MVNOs acquire customers and scale operations in real time, the NCC relies on quarterly or biannual compliance reports submitted by operators, creating a reporting lag. As a result, subscriber gains from aggressive customer-acquisition campaigns may not appear in official industry statistics until months later, making it difficult to assess an operator’s true market position at any given time. The promise of a telecom revolution When the NCC licenced 25 MVNOs in June 2023, it envisioned a more competitive telecom market where smaller, agile operators could challenge the dominance of the big networks, expand connectivity in underserved areas, and build tailored services for niche customer segments. Interest in the model grew quickly, with the number of licenced MVNOs rising to 46 by January 2024. But before the sector had a chance to gain traction, the NCC hit the brakes. On May 17, 2024, the regulator placed a temporary freeze on new MVNO licences alongside Interconnect Exchange and VAS Aggregator licences to avoid overcrowding a market still in its infancy. The ambition was not without precedent. Nigeria’s MVNO framework drew inspiration from the United Kingdom, widely regarded as the birthplace of the modern MVNO industry. What began in 1999, when Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, launched Virgin Mobile on the One2One network, has since evolved into a mature market worth more than $5.23 billion, with over 110 MVNO brands competing across a wide range of customer segments. As of 2025, about 20.19 million UK subscribers use MVNOs such as giffgaff, Lyca Mobile, Tesco Mobile, Lebara, and VOXI—often without realising that these providers operate without owning telecom towers or spectrum licences. Instead, they buy wholesale network capacity from infrastructure owners such as EE, O2, and Vodafone, allowing them to focus on pricing, customer service, and niche market offerings. Tesco Mobile is considered the largest MVNO in the UK with over 5.5 million subscribers. South Africa is the undisputed heavyweight of Africa’s MVNO market. The sector is a thriving $543 million (R8.6 billion) industry with over 23 active virtual operators serving roughly 4.5 million subscribers. The appeal of the MVNO model lies in its lower barriers to entry. Without the enormous cost of building towers or acquiring spectrum licences, operators can focus on pricing, customer service, branding, or niche offerings tailored to specific user groups. On paper, Nigeria appeared ready for a similar transformation. The country has a young and increasingly digital population, rising smartphone penetration, growing data consumption, and an economy becoming more dependent on remote work, fintech, cloud services, and streaming platforms. Consumers are already frustrated by poor service quality and rising data costs, creating what looks like a strong appetite for alternatives. The NCC tried to kick-start the MVNO market in 2022 by introducing a licencing framework that outlined who could operate as an MVNO, the fees they would pay, and the rules they would follow. One key rule was that
Read MoreNigeria’s Daya taps Aptos to power Africa-Middle East stablecoin payments
Daya, a Nigerian B2B stablecoin payments startup, has partnered with Aptos Foundation and Dubai-based crypto exchange HashKey MENA to launch a pilot stablecoin settlement corridor connecting businesses in Africa and the Middle East. The partnership will allow businesses to convert local currencies into stablecoins, settle transactions on the Aptos blockchain, and receive funds in local currencies at the destination. The move marks Aptos’ latest effort to push into Africa. The Layer 1 blockchain, originally built in 2021 to power decentralised finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and gaming, is now increasingly positioning itself around cross-border payments infrastructure in emerging markets. Under the pilot, HashKey MENA will provide regulated fiat on- and off-ramps in the Middle East, while Daya will facilitate payment flows across African markets, including the Nigerian Naira and other local currencies. The corridor will also support bank transfers, virtual local-currency accounts, and payment application programming interfaces (APIs) that businesses and fintechs can integrate into their operations. The pilot is part of HashKey’s Asia Connect network, which links payment corridors across Hong Kong, the Philippines, Vietnam, the UAE, and now Africa. “Africa is already a front-runner in stablecoin adoption. What’s been missing is the regulated infrastructure and scalable liquidity to connect that demand to the rest of the world,” Paul Joe, co-founder of Daya, said. “By joining HashKey’s Asia Connect network as the African node, with settlement on Aptos, we’re plugging into a network that already runs from Hong Kong to the Philippines to Vietnam to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).” In July 2025, Aptos partnered with pan-African stablecoin payments startup Yellow Card to power cross-border transactions in 20 African countries. For blockchain firms, these partnerships are distribution strategies. In October 2025, Flutterwave, Africa’s largest payments startup, partnered with Polygon; eight months later, it expanded its blockchain settlement strategy with Tempo. Separately, Nigerian fintech Paga partnered with Sui in May 2026 to build stablecoin infrastructure. By integrating with fintechs and payment providers that already serve businesses and consumers, networks such as Aptos gain access to real-world payment flows that can drive transaction volume, deepen liquidity, and strengthen network adoption. The Aptos payment push with Daya and Hashkey MENA targets a longstanding challenge in emerging markets, where cross-border payments often move through correspondent banking networks and foreign currencies before reaching their final destination, increasing costs and settlement times for businesses. Founded in October 2025 by Tomiwa “Aleph” Lasebikan, a former co-founder of Y Combinator-backed crypto startup Helicarrier, and Joe, Daya provides stablecoin-enabled cross-border payment infrastructure for African businesses. The company is backed by New York-based crypto accelerator Alliance DAO. The Aptos blockchain will serve as the settlement layer for the corridor, while Daya and HashKey MENA handle fiat connectivity and local payment distribution. Aptos has a market capitalisation of $568.7 million and has processed about 7.9 million stablecoin transactions in the last 30 days, according to US-based stablecoin analytics platform Artemis, far fewer than other native blockchains like Base, Binance Smart Chain (BNB), and Solana that have recorded over 100 million transactions in the same period.
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