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A trove of newly released emails from Steve Jobs shows how the late Apple cofounder prepared for one of his most memorable speeches.
Jobs addressed Stanford University graduates at the university's commencement ceremony on June 12, 2005. Twenty years later, the Steve Jobs Archive published notes and emails he wrote to himself while drafting the speech, along with a high-definition recording of the commencement address.
His Stanford address became famous for its inspirational life lessons, which could apply to college graduates, entrepreneurs, or dropouts like himself. Jobs used his own stories to drive home his points. A recording of the speech published on YouTube in 2008 has 46 million views.
The published correspondence showed Jobs had been working on the speech for at least six months before delivering it.
His early ideas included points about diet, meditation, and encouraging students to focus on their "inner world." Jobs was introduced to Zen Buddhism and meditation in the 1970s.
Jobs wrote down several anecdotes in emails to himself before settling on his final choices for the speech.
In a May 1 draft, Jobs wrote, "Try to always surround yourself with people smarter than you." They can come from different walks of life. He pointed to a "terribly old" engineer he'd hired at Apple not long after it started, who was a "genius." (The engineer was in his 40s at the time, while Jobs was 50 when he delivered the speech.)
Jobs ultimately chose three other personal stories. The first was about "connecting the dots," the second covered "love and loss," and the third was about death.
From the oldest email published, however, Jobs had his opener locked in.
"This is the closest I've ever come to graduating from college," he wrote.
The Stanford speech echoed Jobs' commencement address almost 10 years earlier.
In 1996, Jobs spoke to the graduating class of Palo Alto High School. Both speeches discussed intuition, morality, and following one's passions.
While the 1996 speech focused on the students, Jobs also thought about the parents in the crowd. Scribbled at the bottom of a printout of the speech, he jotted down some thoughts on parenting.
"They tell you that you will love your kids," the handwritten notes read, "never mention that you will fall in love with them."
He also wrote that "every injury or setback parents feel 10x" and that they will always see their children as they were at ages 5, 6, or 7.
The speech concluded by encouraging the high school students to live their lives with as few regrets as possible.
In the Stanford address, Jobs also implored the students to find what they love and live each day like it was their last, telling the story of his first bout of cancer. The Apple cofounder died of pancreatic cancer in 2011 at the age of 56. Once he devised an ending for the Stanford commencement, it stuck.
"'Stay hungry. Stay foolish.' And I have always wished that for myself," he said.
Jobs stuck to the script — that he made a point to write himself down to his "thank you very much."
Apple
Apple is limping into its big summer event this year.
The iPhone giant is setting the stage for its Worldwide Developers Conference — its annual software-focused event that Apple fanatics and investors alike look forward to.
On Monday, developers will descend on Apple's campus in Cupertino, California, where CEO Tim Cook and other executives are set to debut their famous keynote. The event has become known for exciting product reveals, such as the Apple Vision Pro headset and a sneak peek at the latest version of its iPhone operating system, iOS.
This year, however, Apple will have three elephants in the room on its big day: biting China tariffs, an already-behind-schedule Apple Intelligence, and questions around the company's long-term vision for its hardware.
Forrester analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee doesn't expect much fireworks.
"The WWDC announcements will be relatively incremental and muted, perhaps except for a likely visual design overhaul of the user experience," Chatterjee told Business Insider.
In 2024, Cook and Co. introduced the world to Apple Intelligence, Apple's play on artificial intelligence. It built an iPhone around the AI. Nearly a year later, Apple Intelligence hasn't lived up to analysts' expectations for driving more iPhone upgrades.
Apple delayed its promise of a more personalized Siri, which was showcased at WWDC 2024. In April, the company told the unaffiliated Apple blog Daring Fireball that it would take "longer than we thought" to be ready for release.
Monday is a "critical opportunity" for Apple to address key questions about its AI, such as where its roadmap for Apple Intelligence is headed, said Gadjo Sevilla, analyst at EMARKETER, a sister company to BI.
"The company's AI transition has been fraught with delays and the company's inability to showcase its own AI capabilities," Sevilla said.
Apple hasn't had the easiest start to 2025.
The company has been raked by legal battles involving its app store, unpredictable tariff announcements that caused a supply-chain scramble, and ongoing challenges in China, a key region for iPhone sales and manufacturing.
During Apple's earnings call in early May, Cook told investors to expect $900 million in tariff costs in the June quarter.
Then, on May 23, President Donald Trump said iPhones produced outside the US would face a tariff of at least 25%. Analysts previously said shifting iPhone production away from countries like India and China to the US could take up to 10 years and cause iPhone prices to skyrocket.
Chatterjee said these tariff changes could have "grave consequences" for the company.
Apple also suffered a major setback last month in its yearslong court battle with Epic Games. A judge ruled that it will no longer be able to collect a 27% fee from US developers who direct users to make purchases externally.
As a developer-focused event, WWDC could be an opportunity for Apple to smooth things over with app builders.
"This is Apple's chance to mend ties with developers frustrated by its restrictive ecosystem and high fees," Sevilla said.
Apple didn't respond to a request for comment by Business Insider.
Meanwhile, OpenAI, which partnered with Apple last year to bring ChatGPT to Siri, recently tapped Apple's former design lead Jony Ive to work on wearable AI hardware. Ive famously worked closely with the late Apple cofounder, Steve Jobs, to design some of the company's most iconic gadgets before leaving the company in 2019.
Apple was notably late to the AI game. The recent OpenAI hire has analysts concerned that Apple's position as a frontrunner in innovation is slipping.
"This raises expectations for Apple to counter with its own AI innovations — especially since the narrative of the 'next big thing' happening outside Apple, led by its former star designer, is one the company will likely want to dispel," Sevilla said.
Apple has a key advantage in the AI race, however — a massive, global distribution channel for its software. After all, the iPhone is the most popular smartphone in the world.
The tech world will be watching to see if Apple makes moves at WWDC to course-correct after its stumbles in AI over the last year.
Business Insider will be liveblogging Cook's WWDC keynote, which kicks off Monday at 1 p.m. ET.
Donald Trump has hit out at Apple’s plans to produce more iPhones in India as a way of avoiding US tariffs on Chinese-made goods, as he continues to push the tech group to manufacture its best-selling device in America.
Speaking in Qatar on the latest leg of his Middle East tour, the US president said he had “a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday” after the Apple chief executive confirmed last week that Indian factories would supply the “majority” of iPhones sold in the US in the coming months.
The Financial Times previously reported that Apple planned to source from India all of the more than 60 million iPhones sold annually in the US by the end of next year.
© Getty Images | dontree_m
Apple’s rumored super-slim iPhone “Air” isn’t expected until this fall, but supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says development has already begun on a redesigned version with a bigger screen.
According to Kuo, Apple’s second iPhone Air / iPhone “Slim” model is planned for launch in the fall of 2026 as part of the usual annual refresh, but with the same overall size and design before the third iteration expands things the following year. Bloomberg reported in March that the 2025 iPhone Air was originally supposed to come with a 6.9-inch screen, but Apple reduced its size to 6.6 inches to avoid another bendgate scenario.
Kuo’s list also indicates Apple is already working on its second foldable device for release in 2027.
The rumor aligns with a report from The Information over the weekend saying Apple may begin to stagger releasing new iPhones. That would see high-end versions of the iPhone 18 – including the Pro, Air, and a rumored foldable iPhone – introduced in the fall, before the cheaper standard model and budget “e” version launch in the spring of 2027.
One of the Apple Intelligence features that hasn't been delayed is Visual Intelligence, which uses your iPhone's camera to identify and answer questions on whatever's around you in the world.
It lets you snap a pizza restaurant storefront and find out its opening hours, for example, or point your camera at a plant and find out what it's called and how to care for it. If you've used Google Lens, you'll get the idea.
This isn't available to everyone, though. You have to be using iOS 18.2 on the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, or iPhone 16 Pro Max; iOS 18.3 on the iPhone 16E; or iOS 18.4 on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. You'll also need to have Apple Intelligence turned on, via Apple Intelligence & Siri in Settings.
If you have an iPhone 16 with a Camera Control button on the right-hand side, you can tap and hold this button to bring up the camera and Visual Intelligence.
If you've got an iPhone 16E, iPhone 15 Pro, or iPhone 15 Pro Max, you've got a few different options to choose from:
Despite a recent pause on some tariffs, Apple remains in a particularly thorny spot as Donald Trump's trade war spikes costs in the tech company's iPhone manufacturing hub, China.
Analysts predict that Apple has no clear short-term options to shake up its supply chain to avoid tariffs entirely, and even if Trump grants Apple an exemption, iPhone prices may increase not just in the US but globally.
The US Trade Representative, which has previously granted Apple an exemption on a particular product, did not respond to Ars' request to comment on whether any requests for exemptions have been submitted in 2025.
© tang90246 | iStock Editorial / Getty Images Plus
The wait is over — kind of. Apple’s iPhone 16 series is now widely available, including the kinda affordable 16E, and its much-hyped Apple Intelligence has arrived courtesy of iOS 18.1. But if you’re expecting a new kind of iPhone experience, well, I have some bad news for you. The AI features introduced in iOS 18.1 and more recent updates, including the writing tools and ChatGPT integration, are standard fare at this point. And although Siri has a new coat of paint, it’s basically the same old Siri.
Apple has promised much more, but the Apple Intelligence rollout is going to be a slow burn that lasts well into the fall. This is all to say that if you don’t have any complaints about how your current phone is working, you definitely shouldn’t rush out and get a new one just for Apple Intelligence.
That’s actually the gist of our phone buying philosophy: hang on to the one you’ve got. If you’re not the type of person to get excited about a new camera button, updated photo processing options, or incremental performance upgrades, then there’s no reason to run out and buy an iPhone 16.
But if you’re questioning whether it’s the year to replace your iPhone 11 or 12 (or you’re concerned about a price increase as a result of the current tariff situation), then I think the answer is an easy yes. There are real gains this time around, especially in the basic iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, without even considering AI. And if Apple Intelligence turns out to be something special eventually, well, you’ll be ready for it.
| Pros | Cons |
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Screen: 6.1-inch, 2556 x 1179 OLED, 60Hz refresh rate / Processor: A18 Cameras: 48-megapixel f/1.6 main with sensor-shift IS; 12-megapixel ultrawide; 12-megapixel selfie / Battery: Not advertised / Charging: 27W wired, 25W wireless MagSafe, 15W Qi2, 7.5W Qi / Weather-resistance rating: IP68
Apple’s basic iPhone enjoyed a significant hardware boost this time around, playing an overdue game of catch-up to the Pro series. The iPhone 16 includes the Action Button from 2023 Pro models — handy if there’s an app in your life you want to access at the touch of a button — and the new Camera Control. So if buttons are anything to go by, this phone is two better than the last-gen model.
There’s more going on under the hood, too. The A18 chipset is in the same generation as the processor on the Pro models, which hasn’t been the case for the past couple of years. That bodes well for the 16 series staying on the same update schedule. And there’s extra RAM in this year’s base model, which can only be a good thing.
The iPhone 16 became a much more interesting camera this time around, too. The Camera Control offers a quick way to launch the camera app and adjust settings like exposure compensation. But there’s also a new set of Photographic Style filters this time around, with options to adjust contrast, brightness, and undertones to dial in your preferred rendering of skin tones. You’ll get better low-light performance by stepping up to the 16 Pro models, and other cool tricks like 4K recording at 120 fps. But even without all that, it’s the most customizable camera Apple has offered yet.
Outside of camera performance, there are two major drawbacks to picking the regular 16 over a Pro model: no zoom lens, and no ProMotion screen. Only the Pro has a dedicated 5x lens, which is handy for creative framing. And the standard 60Hz screen on the iPhone 16 will likely only bother you if you’re used to a smoother 120Hz display, though it’s annoying on principle that Apple keeps this feature to its Pro phones when virtually every other high-end phone has one.
| Pros | Cons |
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Screen: 6.3-inch, 2622 x 1206 OLED, 120Hz refresh rate / Processor: A18 Pro Cameras: 48-megapixel f/1.8 with sensor-shift IS; 12-megapixel 5x telephoto with OIS; 48-megapixel ultrawide; 12-megapixel selfie / Battery: Not advertised / Charging: 27W wired, 25W MagSafe wireless, 15W Qi2, 7.5W Qi / Weather-resistance rating: IP68
The iPhone 16 Pro gets a small but meaningful upgrade this time around: a bump up to a 5x zoom, which on the 15 series was reserved for the Pro Max. And while the change from a 3x to 5x zoom doesn’t look that impressive on paper, it goes a long way to making the smaller 16 Pro feel like an equal to the 16 Pro Max. For once, you don’t need to get the biggest phone to get the best phone.
The 16 Pro is roughly the same size as the 15 Pro, but it has a bigger screen: 6.3 inches, up from 6.1 inches. There’s also the new Camera Control, an upgraded 48-megapixel ultrawide on board, and naturally, a new chipset that — naturally — supports Apple Intelligence.
There’s nothing here that makes the 16 Pro an absolute must-upgrade. Still, plenty of people will want the latest device with all the bells and whistles, and the 16 Pro represents an opportunity to get all of those features without having to buy the biggest phone.
| Pros | Cons |
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Screen: 6.7-inch Super Retina OLED / Processor: A18 Cameras: 48-megapixel f/1.6 main with sensor-shift IS; 12-megapixel ultrawide; 12-megapixel selfie / Battery: Not advertised / Charging: 27W wired, 25W wireless MagSafe, 15W Qi2, 7.5W Qi / Weather-resistance rating: IP68
The thing about a big phone is that it has a big battery. And while that’s easy enough to understand, it still feels surprising how much more performance you can eke out of the iPhone 16 Plus’ battery. It’ll stretch well into a second day of use, and even if you’re conditioned to charge your phone every night, you’ll be amazed at how much you have left in the tank at the end of each day. It’s a solid antidote to battery anxiety.
Naturally, the 16 Plus’ big-ness comes with another bonus: a bigger screen. The benefits are obvious here, too. But something that stands out to me when I use the phone is just how light it feels for its size, especially if you’re comparing it to the 16 Pro Max. If you like a big display but don’t need all of the weight of the Max — metaphorically and physically speaking — then the Plus is the way to go.
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Screen: 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR / Processor: A18 Cameras: 48MP Fusion with 1x and 2x optical zoom, 12-megapixel selfie / Battery: Not advertised / Charging: 20-watt wired, 7.5W Qi, no MagSafe/ Weather-resistance rating: IP68
This recommendation comes with a heavy sigh. Yes, the 16E is the cheapest new iPhone Apple sells. Yes, it’s a good phone. It has a capable camera, reliable performance, full water resistance, wireless charging, and will be supported with software updates for years to come. But its $599 price tag starts to feel like too much when you consider what it’s missing.
There’s no MagSafe, which you can kind of add by way of a MagSafe case, but it’s a bummer not to have it built in when it has basically become a standard iPhone feature. There’s no ultrawide camera, no Dynamic Island housing timely information, no camera control (not a huge loss, honestly), and no Ultra Wideband for precise object tracking. It does support Apple Intelligence, but that doesn’t feel like much of a consolation, given that it’s very much still a work in progress.
The 16E will most likely receive more years of software support than a previous-gen model like the iPhone 14 or 15. And sure, Apple Intelligence might turn into something useful someday. The 16E is a good choice if you want the path of least resistance to blue bubbles and FaceTime at your fingertips. But if you’d like MagSafe, a more advanced camera, and some of the other bells and whistles that got lost on the way to the 16E, then it’s not a bad idea to look at one of the older iPhones.
Apple still sells the iPhone 15 new, cutting the price down to $699 with the introduction of the 16 series. There’s a strong argument for buying a 15 rather than the 16E if you don’t care about Apple Intelligence; the 15 Pro runs Apple Intelligence while the regular 15 doesn’t. Compared to the 16E, the iPhone 15 includes MagSafe, the Dynamic Island, an ultra wideband chip for precise item tracking, and an ultrawide camera.
Update, July 25th: Updated to reflect current pricing / availability, with new links for relevancy.
The US smartphone market is weird. Most of us buy our phones through some combination of installment plans, trade-in offers, and carrier deals, so answering the question âHow much does this phone cost?â can sometimes require a little galaxy-brain math. President Trumpâs 34 percent tariff increase on Chinese goods is set to take effect on April 9th, making things even more complicated. Will Apple, for instance, pass the extra cost of an iPhone right along to buyers? The market seems to think so. Itâs likely why Appleâs shares are down almost 10 percent, the worst drop in about five years.
But Gerrit Schneemann, a senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, doesnât necessarily believe weâll see an immediate price increase.
âI donât foresee them⦠on a short-term basis just raising prices unnecessarily,â Schneemann told The Verge.
He points out that Appleâs margins (historically about 38 percent) give it more wiggle room to absorb the costs of the tariffs, at least in the short term. âBut I think if this sticks, then probably with the 17 we could see a price hike,â he said, referring to the iPhone 17 expected in the fall.
If the goal with these tariffs is …
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