Apple Sets Oct. 13 Event; OpenAI, Samsung, Porsche and XPeng Announce Major Updates

Citing Bloomberg, Apple plans to introduce its first touchscreen MacBook Pro and a new iPad mini around Oct. 27, through online videos and offline media experiences. The lineup also includes 14-inch MacBook Pro and iMac models with M6 chips. The high-end MacBook Pro will come in 14- and 16-inch versions with OLED touch displays, thinner bodies and a Dynamic Island interface. The new iPad mini will use an OLED screen but keep a 60Hz refresh rate, move the front camera to the horizontal side and update its speaker system.

OpenAI announced GPT-6.1 Sol Ultrafast for API, Codex and ChatGPT Work. OpenAI said the version’s intelligence is close to Astra and its speed can reach up to eight times that of Sol Standard. Standard GPT-6.1 Sol API pricing is $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens; Ultrafast costs $12 per million input tokens and $60 per million output tokens. Ultrafast is available pay-as-you-go on the API. On Codex and ChatGPT Work, it is initially open only to Pro 500 subscribers, eligible Enterprise pay-as-you-go users and Edu users.

South Korea’s MoneyToday reported that Samsung Electronics’ Mobile Experience division has told suppliers it plans to cut smartphone supply by 20% to 30% in the fourth quarter of 2026. The report said rising memory prices have made phone profits very thin, with some products potentially loss-making, and the cut is a way to protect overall profitability. TrendForce data showed 12GB LPDDR5X phone memory was about $145 to $146 in the second quarter of 2026, up 175% year-on-year; third-quarter prices were expected to rise about 20% quarter-on-quarter and reach up to $180. Samsung had previously expected annual phone production of up to 270 million units, but after the cuts full-year output may be just over 200 million units. Samsung plans to report detailed third-quarter results on Oct. 29.

Anthropic released a new Usage Policy on Oct. 8, effective Nov. 12. It refines restrictions on high-risk uses including influence operations, weapons development, surveillance, medical and financial applications, and requires human observation and stop capability when hardware is connected for autonomous actions. The policy adds a prohibition on persistent and unnecessary abuse or cruelty toward the model, limited to repeated extreme behavior without a clear purpose; ordinary frustration, questioning and criticism are not covered. Anthropic also placed the use of fake accounts, forged websites and hidden information sources under a new deceptive activities section.

Porsche announced its Sportwagenschmiede ’35 strategy on Oct. 7 at its Weissach research and development center. The plan redirects resources toward high-end sports cars and high-margin models, simplifies the organization and product portfolio, improves production efficiency and lowers the break-even point to below 200,000 annual vehicle sales. A future package agreed with employee representatives includes about 9,000 job cuts through natural attrition, early retirement and voluntary departure, while core employee jobs are guaranteed until 2035. Porsche will expand high-end sports cars and D- and E-segment models and develop a new mid-engine supercar platform. It said the 911 will not become a fully electric model. In 2028 it plans electric 718 Boxster and 718 Cayman models, and it plans a B-segment SUV with combustion and plug-in hybrid powertrains. Its medium-term targets are a group return on sales of 10% to 15% and an automotive net cash flow margin of 9% to 12%.

Lei Jun said on Weibo that Xiaomi Pengcheng received more than 70,000 locked orders from its Sept. 7 launch to Oct. 7, its first 30 days on the market. The first batch includes the N70 Pro, N70 Max, N90 Max and N90 Max Explorer, positioned as Xiaomi Auto’s intelligent variable large-space extended-range SUV series.

XPeng Group announced on Oct. 8 that its Robotaxi Chinese brand name is “小鹏悠游” and its English name is XPENG YOYO. The official website and autonomous ride-hailing mini program went online at the same time, with public experience to follow through invitation codes. XPeng said the Robotaxi business relies on its self-developed Turing AI chip, second-generation VLA large model and AI infrastructure. A mass-produced vehicle rolled off the line in May; in July the company completed the full chain from online ordering to automatic pickup and drop-off and began employee beta testing; in August it obtained Guangzhou’s intelligent connected vehicle remote testing qualification.

Manus parent company Butterfly Effect announced a new funding round of more than $500 million, led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with Tencent, Sequoia China and ZhenFund continuing to participate. The company said hiring in China and overseas is still underway.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Politico podcast Decoded that the world should accept some negative events brought by AI in exchange for the technology’s benefits and user autonomy. He said one disagreement between OpenAI and stricter AI safety advocates is the view that “some bad things will happen” while society explores system resilience, and that regulation should take a lighter approach. New York University emeritus professor Gary Marcus criticized that framing, saying it turns social risk into a cost of corporate expansion. Altman’s focus is on placing regulatory boundaries around system resilience and user choice: if risks can be discovered, explained and fixed during use, he prefers letting products enter real environments first; if risks could cause irreversible harm, limits should be set before release. Marcus focuses on responsibility, arguing that treating “some bad things will happen” as an innovation cost may leave affected people bearing losses that companies and regulators should bear.

Apple published a notice requiring that, from April next year, all new apps and version updates submitted to App Store Connect include screenshots adapted to iPhone Duo, or they will not pass review. The rule applies to both apps and games with no category exemptions. Developers must upload separate screenshots of apps running on the outer and inner screens for App Store product-page display. Already-listed older apps are not affected, but once developers submit an update they must provide the screenshots. iPhone Duo is Apple’s first foldable phone, launched Sept. 10, with a 5.4-inch outer screen when closed and a 7.6-inch screen when open. It runs iOS 27.1, opens pre-orders at 8 p.m. on Oct. 16 and goes on sale Oct. 23. Apple provided Xcode 27.1 with a built-in iPhone Duo simulator, allowing developers to preview different fold angles and orientations in Device Hub. Apple also launched an app asset specification page with screenshot dimensions, layout, preview video standards and template files.

OnePlus 16 will be launched at 7 p.m. on Oct. 12. OnePlus China president Li Jie disclosed that the phone will use Qualcomm’s sixth-generation Snapdragon 8 Super Ultimate chip and a self-developed gaming triple chip, targeting native 185 FPS gaming. It will also feature a 200-megapixel main camera, LUMO imaging system, 165Hz display, 9000mAh battery and ColorOS 17. More price and availability details will be announced at the event. Lenovo announced on Oct. 8 that the YOGA Pro 15 RTX Spark, overseas model Yoga Pro 9n, opened pre-sales in China and will go on sale Oct. 16. It is one of the first AI PCs with Nvidia’s RTX Spark N1X chip, aimed at AI developers, professional creators and high-performance computing users. It offers up to 128GB unified memory and a 2TB SSD, with up to a 20-core NVIDIA Grace CPU and a Blackwell RTX GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores, reaching up to 1 PFLOPS in FP4 AI peak performance. Lenovo said the device can run more than 100-billion-parameter models locally and comes preinstalled with a 35B local model and Tianxi AI ultra mode. The RTX Spark platform shares unified memory between CPU and GPU, reducing limits traditional discrete VRAM places on local model deployment. Vidu AI opened Vidu Q4 Preview on Oct. 8, a next-generation video-generation model preview that supports up to three reference audio clips, 15 reference images and 2K and 4K output.

Other updates included Step’s STEPX Neo smart agent phone set for launch on Oct. 13. Forza Horizon 6 on PS5 was delayed to Jan. 26, 2027. Delta Force surpassed 58 million daily active users. Omdia forecast that premium TV shipments will grow 9.3% in 2027 while total global TV shipments are expected to fall 1%. Cyberpunk 2077 will be developed as a live-action film by Paramount. The 2026 National Day box office reached 1.165 billion yuan, down 36% year-on-year. The Three Kingdoms Part One: Battle of Luoyang was rescheduled to Oct. 17. Norsfell announced a new top-down action RPG that blends survival building and supports single-player and multiplayer, with Norse, Greek and Egyptian mythologies in one open world and Chinese mythology to be added later; it is planned for Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, with no release date announced.