Fashion blogger Karin Teigl coordinating her Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max with her outfit (Jeremy Moeller/Getty Images)

Black out

Orange iPhones are the new black

The latest iPhone Pro doesn’t come in black, the preferred iPhone color, so people are picking... Cosmic Orange.

11/12/25 1:03PM

Typically when consumers shell out for a new Apple iPhone, their preferred color is black or something close to it, according to data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), which has been asking iPhone buyers about their purchases for years.

But the latest iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, which early data shows are selling at a faster clip than previous years, come in only three colors: Silver, Deep Blue, and Cosmic Orange. And so far, orange has proven to be the most popular choice for the most expensive iPhones, with 40% of purchasers opting for it, over the more staid blue and silver.

Why?

CIRP partner and cofounder Michael Levin told Sherwood News it could be cultural or a novelty.

“If you kind of want to stand out with your new phone, then you pick that one,” Levin said, referring to Cosmic Orange. Or, as he and CIRP partner and cofounder Josh Lowitz wrote, “Perhaps premium iPhone buyers want to show that they have the newest model with its most distinctive color.”

Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on this very important topic.

Notably, this isn’t the first time the iPhone Pro or Pro Max sold well in unlikely colors, CIRP found. In 2022, the Deep Purple iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max led the way, even when a black phone was available.

Is it wise to make such a big purchase in a color that may fade with fashion whims? Who knows. At least phone cases are cheap.

Chris Stokel-Walker

Bot bias

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Prediction markets have, predictably, been given a boost by the summer of sports

Major platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have seen huge upticks in users of late, thanks in no small part to what’s felt like a recent sporting smorgasbord, with major competitions across hockey, basketball, and soccer soaking up fans’ time (and spending, clearly) at the outset of summer.

While gaming industry groups may not like it, there’s been a huge change in the methods people are using to put money on the big games, with everyone from fortunate NYC bar owners, to a far less fortunate Spanish supporter, turning to prediction markets to try and turn their sports know-how into cold, hard cash.

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

2026 World Cup Reverses Seasonal Lull for Sports Betting Apps

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

South by Southwest Conference and Festivals

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TAKING ACCOUNTS

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Anthropic pulls Fable and Mythos access worldwide after Trump administration bars their use by foreign nationals

Only days after releasing two versions of its next-gen AI model, Anthropic has disabled them for users worldwide.

Anthropic says it received a Friday night order from the Trump administration to suspend access to the models for any foreign national (anywhere in the world) — a group that included some Anthropic employees. In response, the company turned off access to everyone.

Last week, the company released to the public its much-anticipated Claude Fable 5 model (and its restricted version Claude Mythos 5, which is still being tested with trusted partners). Anthropic said in a blog post announcing the action that officials cited national security concerns with the new models, while offering few specific details.

The post said that the government gave the company “verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” of the public Fable 5 model. A jailbreak is a means by which users can evade restrictions built into the code to unlock prohibited functionality. Anthropic downplayed the significance of the attack, and said other major models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, could also be affected by the technique described.

Fears of these first Mythos-class models being misused are running high, after Anthropic warned the cybersecurity world in May that the advanced cyber capabilities of Mythos have rapidly discovered thousands of vulnerabilities in ubiquitous software, leading to the decision to restrict the full version of the model to a close group of trusted partners for testing.

This morning, Axios reported that Anthropic technical staff have flown to Washington to meet with White House officials to resolve the issue.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Trump administration’s decision to take action against Anthropic was prompted by discussions that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had with officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. According to the report, Amazon researchers said they had been able to evade some of Fable 5’s security restrictions using specific prompts. Amazon is a major investor in Anthropic.

Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the Pentagon’s blacklisting of the company on national security grounds.

Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5