Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge “The new FineWoven iPhone cases are very bad,” according to my colleague Allison Johnson, so you probably shouldn’t buy one. Still, I’ve been curious to learn more about them, and iFixit’s new teardown just gave me even more information than I could have thought to ask for: it put one of the new cases under a microscope, tested how it stood up to things like hot sauce and coffee, and tore the thing apart — and, best of all, photographed every step of the way. There are some incredible zoomed-in photos of the…
Illustration: The Verge X is planning to shut down Circles, a feature that lets you share posts with a limited group of people instead of all of your followers. The company said in a “PSA” on Thursday that Circles will be disabled by October 31st. “After this date, you will not be able to create new posts that are limited to your Circle, nor will you be able to add people to your Circle,” X wrote in a post on its help center. “You will, however, be able to remove people from your Circle,” and the company gave instructions on…
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge The Justice Department has removed access to publicly posted trial documents in US v. Google amid a dispute over how files should be made available online, according to reporter Leah Nylen of Bloomberg. Nylen, reporting from the courtroom, said that Judge Amit Mehta will make a decision in the morning on future online access to exhibits. The Big Tech On Trial newsletter reported more details of the exchange, which apparently occurred during an exchange between the Justice Department and Google over whether an exhibit could be submitted as evidence. Google’s attorneys apparently raised…
The iPhone 15 and 15 Pro phones will be the first to support the Qi2 open charging standard, but they aren’t Qi2-certified yet. | Image: Apple The iPhone 15 and 15 Pro are the first phones to ship with the new Qi2 magnetic wireless charging standard. Well, sort of: it turns out they aren’t Qi2-certified yet. But neither is anything else. Qi2 is an update to the Qi wireless charging standard that adds a ring of magnets to ensure proper alignment of the charging coils. You know, like MagSafe. Unlike MagSafe, Qi2 is an open standard — Apple even contributed…
Finally, the kind of treatment Nintendo’s 34-year-old handheld deserves. | Image: Grid Happy Saturday, dear readers! If you’re anything like me, chances are you have a soft spot for older tech, specifically the kind of borderline-ancient gadgets and gizmos that often find their way to the landfill or the shoebox under your bed. If so, I’m here to tell you that Grid Studio is running an anniversary sale through Sunday, September 10th, offering discounts on an assortment of framed, nostalgia-inducing gadgets. In terms of what’s available, you have some options. The original Game Boy and iPhone 4S — which are…
Illustration: The Verge Google is finally starting to add support for older Nest Cams to the Google Home app, starting with the first-generation Nest Cam Indoor from 2015, according to a post from Google on Thursday. The support is available in the public preview of the Google Home app, and you can find instructions on how to participate in that program on Google’s website. But it might be awhile until you can actually use your Nest Cam Indoor with the app. “Once you’re in the preview, you’ll see a prompt in the Public Preview version of the Home app when…
The Verge X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, is testing stripping headlines from articles shared on the site. The move was initially reported by Fortune, before X owner Elon Musk confirmed it directly. Posts would only include the lead image and the URL, unless the person or publisher posting the link adds their own text, per materials the outlet viewed. The image would still serve as a link to the article, but there’s no word on a timetable to roll it out or confirmation that it will ship at all. “It’s something Elon wants,” a source is…
Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Microsoft is restructuring its proposed Activision Blizzard deal to transfer cloud gaming rights for current and new Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft. The transfer of rights is designed to appease regulators in the UK that are concerned about the impact Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion deal will have on cloud gaming competition. The restructured deal has triggered a new regulatory investigation in the UK that could last until October 18th. “To address the concerns about the impact of the proposed acquisition on cloud game streaming raised by the UK Competition and Markets Authority, we…
The Roomba j7 Plus offers everything you could want in a robovac, including an auto-empty dock. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge There’s a reason people still often refer to robot vacuums as “Roombas.” The company behind the well-known robovac series, iRobot, has spent decades iterating in the space, resulting in some of the best robot vacuums you can buy. The Roomba j7 Plus is a great example, one that’s on sale at Wellbots for Verge readers for $549 ($250 off) — its lowest price to date — with coupon code VERGE200. While still pricey, the j7…
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Some iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro owners have complaints reminiscent of the bad old days of “batterygate,” reporting that with less than a year of service on the clock, their phones are already reporting more battery degradation than expected. Sam Kohl of AppleTrack tweeted in July that his iPhone 14 Pro had already dropped to a maximum capacity of 90 percent, a much faster dropoff than previous iPhones he’d owned, and the thread shows many other people with the same experience. Kohl followed up with a video posted yesterday about the…
Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge BrightDrop, the electric delivery spinoff of General Motors, is bringing its battery-powered delivery vans to Mexico as its next market. The company now covers all of North America after expanding to Canada last year. The first two products that will be available to customers in Mexico will be the company’s Zevo 400 and Zevo 600 delivery vans. The Zevo 600 sports a 165 kWh battery pack for 250 miles of range. The Zevo 400 is smaller and nimbler — though we’re still waiting for more specific specs when it starts production later this…
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Samsung’s Galaxy SmartTag 2 appeared in an FCC listing today, offering us a small preview of what to expect from the forthcoming location tracker (via 9to5Google). Perhaps most notably, the FCC listing refers to one version of the tracker that will come with ultra-wideband (UWB) connectivity for more precise tracking. That doesn’t rule out Samsung releasing a second variant later. The $39 SmartTag Plus — which combined BLE with UWB — came after the original $29 standard SmartTag, which featured only Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). Another notable difference is that the Galaxy SmartTag’s…
Illustration: The Verge The ChatGPT for Android app is now available in the Google Play Store, launching a few months after the free iOS app brought the chatbot to iPhones and iPads. According to a company tweet, it’s available first in the US, India, Bangladesh, and Brazil, with other countries set to follow later, mimicking the staged rollout we saw for the iOS version. As we noted last week, the launch of an Android app is coming after Sensor Tower and Similarweb data showed drops in web traffic and app installations for June. ChatGPT for Android is now available for…
Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Netflix isn’t planning to make a native version of its app for the Vision Pro, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. Instead, he says, the company will allow its existing iPad app to run, unmodified, on Apple’s forthcoming mixed reality headset. As Gurman’s piece points out, developers who don’t want to build Vision Pro software from the ground up have two choices: let their iPad apps run as is on the device or tweak them for the Vision Pro. Netflix has chosen the former, though whether pointedly or not, we…
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. | Image: Nintendo Right now, we are absolutely spoiled for choice when it comes to entertainment. TV shows, movies, and games all come out at such a fast and furious pace that it’s hard to keep up. Not all of them are worth your time, of course — which is where we come in. Our team spends a lot of time immersed in the various realms of pop culture so that we can handpick our favorites for you. That could mean a hot new indie game you might’ve otherwise missed or the…
The translucent pair of Beats Studio Plus are on sale this weekend, along with other shades. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Technically, Amazon Prime Day ended a couple of days ago, but it appears Amazon and other retailers didn’t get the memo. Quite a few of the best deals are still kicking around, including one on the Beats Studio Buds Plus that’s available to Prime members and non-Prime members alike. Right now, you buy the terrific wireless earbuds at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target for just shy of $150 ($20 off). In addition to a unique translucent…
The Light Antenna One promises up-to-gigabit network connections with infrared light. We’ve known for over a decade that blinking light bulbs can transfer substantial quantities of wireless data, not just dumb infrared commands to your TV. Now, the IEEE standards body behind Wi-Fi has decided to formally invite “Li-Fi” to the same table — with speeds of between 10 megabits per second and 9.6 gigabits per second using invisible infrared light. As of June 2023, the IEEE 802.11 wireless standard now officially recognizes wireless light communications as a physical layer for wireless local area networks, which is a fancy way…