Welcome to 95 Mac Daily for Wednesday, January 14th, 2026. I'm your host, Chance Miller. We are sponsored this week by Stuff, the clean and powerful to-do list application. Leading off today, Apple is partaking in a week-long event intended to test the real-world performance of the standard behind its car key platform.

Participating carmakers in this plug-fast event organized by the Car Connectivity Consortium include BMW, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Rivian, and VW.

The digital key specification behind Apple's car key feature is maintained by the

Car Connectivity Consortium.

Each year, the organization hosts an end-to-end interoperability event designed to provide

data on the real-world performance of the technology.

This year's version is focused on version four of the standard, and the CCC says that 115 vehicles

and other products achieved certification last year, and that 15 automakers and smart device

manufacturers are involved in this year's test. Testing encompasses security, privacy,

and reliability. With passive entries supported by a growing number of carmakers, this is one of the focuses of this year's event.

This is when compatible vehicles will automatically unlock as you approach them with car key installed on your iPhone or Apple Watch.

The CCC says that all of this is a signal of the growing demand for consistent

and interoperable digital key experiences across vehicles and devices. Ultimately, this is an

example of Apple putting its weight behind an industry standard and ensuring that its implementation

of the feature works for all of its users, regardless of which specific

device or car they are using. Next up today, a new report from Nica Asia says that Apple has been

scrambling to solve a glass cloth shortage, with the supply crunch projected to last until

at least the second half of 2027. The report explains that Apple was one of the first companies to use glass cloth fiber

as part of the substrate to the iPhone chip due to its dimensional stability,

rigidity, and ability to facilitate high data transmission.

It's a critical component in building chip substrates and printed circuit boards, which themselves are the building blocks of all electronic devices.

The problem is that thanks to the AI boom, companies such as Nvidia, Google, and Amazon have also started turning to the same technology for the substrate of their AI chips. This is creating

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