The best iPhones
New iPhones for the AI era. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge
Whether you want a battery that lasts for days or the very best deal, we’ve got some recommendations for an iPhone you’ll love.
New iPhones are here, but Apple Intelligence is MIA. The much-hyped AI features will start to ship with iOS 18.1 in October, and they’ll include things like notification summaries and generative AI-powered writing tools. It’s all pretty standard fare at this point, but more promising features will continue to roll out well into 2025 — at least, that’s what Apple says.
It all puts the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro in an unusual spot: even once 18.1 drops, Apple Intelligence will still be a work in progress. That adds another dimension to the perennial question: “Is this the year to upgrade?”
Despite all the fuss about AI, our usual advice about phone buying holds true: hang on to the one you 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 rush out and buy an iPhone 16.
But if you’re questioning whether it’s the year to replace your iPhone 11 or 12 (or maybe even older, in which case well done!), then I think the answer is an easy yes. There are real gains this year, especially in the basic iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, without even considering AI. And if Apple Intelligence turns out to be something special, well, you’ll be ready for it.
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 last year’s 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 last year’s 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.
Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge
The iPhone 16 Plus (left) and iPhone 16 (right).
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.
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’s ready and waiting for Apple Intelligence.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
This year’s smaller Pro phone comes with a 5x telephoto lens.
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.
Screen:6.7-inch Super Retina OLED /Processor:A18Cameras: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 how much you have left in the tank at the end of each day. It’s a solid antidote to battery anxiety.
Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge
A bigger phone means a bigger battery.
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.
Screen:6.1-inch, 2532 x 1170 OLED, 60Hz refresh rate /Processor:A15 BionicCameras:12-megapixel f/1.5 main with sensor-shift IS; 12-megapixel ultrawide; 12-megapixel selfie /Battery:Not advertised /Charging:Wired, 15W wireless MagSafe, 7.5W Qi /Weather-resistance rating:IP68
Technically, the iPhone 14 isn’t the cheapest new iPhone you can buy. That honor goes to 2022’s iPhone SE, which starts at $429. But the SE uses an older design that makes it feel like a different kind of iPhone entirely. In the meantime, the 2022 iPhone 14 has been marked down twice to $599, making it the best deal you can get on a new, modern iPhone.
The regular iPhone 14 didn’t come with a lot of upgrades; it felt more like an iPhone 13S. But it was in the first wave of iPhones to include Emergency SOS via satellite, which could be a literal lifesaver. And the 14 got some helpful camera improvements over the 13, including a larger main camera image sensor and better low-light image processing thanks to some processing pipeline updates.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Just a good, basic iPhone that will keep on running for years to come.
On the other hand, the 14 was the last generation of iPhone to come without the Dynamic Island, which is the pill-shaped notch that houses time-sensitive updates and status indicators. You’ll still get that information as notifications, but it’s not quite as handy as having it available at a glance no matter what you’re doing on your phone.
Another thing to be aware of: iPhone 14 series owners have complained of premature battery rundown, with overall battery health falling much faster than it should. Most of the battery complaints I’ve seen center on the 14 Pro models; still, it’s something to keep an eye on. All that said, the 14 should receive software updates for another four years, and that’s a pretty good ROI considering its new price.
The third-gen iPhone SE, released in 2022, is the last of its kind. It’s Apple’s least expensive iPhone, but it’s also the last phone to use Touch ID with a dedicated home button. If you’re not a fan of gesture navigation, you want an inexpensive iPhone, or maybe — imagine! — you just want a small iPhone, then the SE is your best bet. Well, it’s your only bet.
This recommendation comes with some big caveats, starting with that screen. It’s small — at 4.7 inches, it’s significantly smaller than the iPhone 13 Mini’s display, even though the SE is slightly taller and wider than the Mini. The screen feels cramped, and the LCD technology looks dated.
Image: Allison Johnson / The Verge
The iPhone SE uses an old design, but it’s a great value. It’s also probably your last chance to buy an iPhone with a home button if that’s a thing you’re clinging to.
There are a couple other low points: the camera system doesn’t have a night mode, and there’s only 64GB of storage on the base model. All that said, if you’re accustomed to a bigger phone screen, the SE’s 4.7-inch LCD might be the thing that’s hardest to live with. But if a small screen doesn’t bother you and you just need that home button, then it’s hard to argue with the SE’s price.
Apple still sells the iPhone 15 new, cutting the price down to $699 with the introduction of the 16 series. If you’re paying for your phone out of pocket and want to save a bit of cash it’s a solid option — just know that it won’t be eligible for Apple Intelligence. The 15 Pro will be able to run Apple’s AI features when they arrive, but the standard 15 won’t.
There’s also a compelling argument for buying an iPhone 14 Plus at its twice-discounted rate of $699. Its big battery will go all day and then some, though you’ll miss out on the Dynamic Island, Action Button, and Camera Control. If you’re not fussed about getting the latest features and just want a big screen, then it’s a worthy candidate.
Activision says it’s fixed an anti-cheat hack in Modern Warfare III and Call of Duty: Warzone
Image: Activision
Activision says it has “disabled a workaround to a detection system” in Modern Warfare III and Call of Duty: Warzone that led to legitimate players getting banned by the Ricochet anti-cheat system. The company says the problem “impacted a small number of legitimate player accounts,” and all accounts affected were restored.
However, zebleer, who runs the Phantom Overlay store selling cheats, claims the problem is much bigger than Activision’s post makes it seem. In a detailed post on X, they write that when Ricochet scanned the memory of a player’s computer to find known cheat software, one of the signatures it scanned for was a plaintext string reading:
54 72 69 67 67 65 72 20 42 6f 74 (Trigger Bot)
As a result, zebleer says that “for quite some time,” it has been possible to get someone permanently banned simply by sending them a friend request with the phrase or posting a message like “Nice Trigger Bot dude!” in the game’s chat since it would then show up in their memory and get scanned by Ricochet.
Despite Activision saying a “small number” of legit accounts were affected, zebleer claims that “several thousand random COD players were banned by this exploit” before anyone started targeting big streamers.
RICOCHET Anti-Cheat identified and disabled a workaround to a detection system in Modern Warfare III and Call of Duty: Warzone that impacted a small number of legitimate player accounts. We have restored all accounts that were impacted. An…
Public apology would go a long way. Imagine having your name drug through the mud for 2 weeks for something you never did and being offered 0 explanation. Oh wait that was ME the past 2 weeks!!!
Zebleer points to BobbyPoff, a Call of Duty streamer, as one of the people banned due to the person using the exploit since October 3rd before his account was suddenly unbanned yesterday. Like other players and streamers caught up in the bans, there had been intense speculation and discussion over whether or not BobbyPoff was a cheater, even as he maintained his innocence and some people posted jokey videos.
Got a PC check and no hacks.. it wasn’t me.. shoutout to Dave with yet another banger!! https://t.co/wBj1DU1a76
The Call of Duty Updates account says that the Ricochet team will share a blog post tomorrow, though the account didn’t specify if the post will discuss this exploit.
Activision didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
DJI tells The Verge that it currently cannot freely import all of its drones into the United States — and that its latest consumer drone, the Air 3S, won’t currently be sold at retail as a result.
That’s not because the United States has suddenly banned DJI drones — rather, DJI believes the import restrictions are “part of a broader initiative by the Department of Homeland Security to scrutinize the origins of products, particularly in the case of Chinese-made drones,” according to DJI.
DJI recently sent a letter to distributors with one possible reason why DHS is stopping some of its drones: the company says US Customs and Border Protection is citing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) as justification for blocking the imports. In the letter, which has been floating around drone sites and Reddit for several days, DJI claims it doesn’t use any forced labor to manufacture drones.
Reuters reported on the letter earlier today; DJI spokesperson Daisy Kong confirmed the letter’s legitimacy to The Verge as well.
In a just-published official blog post, DJI is calling this all a “misunderstanding,” and writes that it’s currently sending documentation to US Customs to prove that it doesn’t manufacture anything in the Xinjiang region of China where Uyghurs have been forcibly detained, that it complies with US law and international standards, and that US retailers have audited its supply chain. DJI claims it manufacturers all its products in Shenzhen or Malaysia.
Notably, DJI is not currently on the UFLPA Entity List maintained by the Department of Homeland Security — but it was previously added to the Department of Commerce’s Entity List for allegedly providing drones to the Chinese government so it could conduct surveillance of Uyghurs.
US Customs and Border Protection didn’t reply to a request for comment.
While the US House of Representatives did pass a bill that would effectively ban DJI drones from being imported into the US, that ban would also need to pass the Senate. Last we checked, the Senate had removed the DJI ban from its version of the must-pass 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (though it did get reintroduced as an amendment and could potentially still make it into the final bill).
DJI says the “customs-related issue” has “primarily impacted” the company’s enterprise and agricultural drones, but has also now “limited us from offering the Air 3S to US customers beyond DJI.com.”
“We are actively working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to resolve this issue and remain hopeful for a swift resolution,” writes DJI.
The US government has cracked down on DJI drones before, but not in a way that would keep stores from buying them, consumers from purchasing them, or individual pilots from flying them in the United States. Primarily, the US Department of Commerce’s “entity list” keeps US companies from exporting their technology to the Chinese company, and the US has sometimes restricted certain government entities from purchasing new DJI drones.
Even if DJI imports do get banned by Congress, the proposed law suggests existing owners could still use their drones — but the FCC could no longer authorize DJI gadgets with radios for use in the United States, which would effectively block all imports.
The best smartwatches for Android
Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge
Wear OS is much better than it used to be, so there’s never been a better time to consider a smartwatch.
After a long stretch of slim pickings, the last couple of years have been huge for Android smartwatches. Now there are more good options than ever.
But this is still a transitional era. While we’re encouraged by the stronger third-party app options, the market is still fragmented. Wear OS 5 is here for Samsung’s Galaxy Watches and the Pixel Watch 3. However, the larger ecosystem is still catching up. Some features, like Google Assistant, are not yet available on certain Wear OS 3 smartwatches, and Wear OS 4 still isn’t widely available. Even so, the Android wearable ecosystem is barreling ahead.
If you’d rather wait until Wear OS settles down a bit, there are platform-agnostic smartwatches and fitness watches you can buy in the meantime. Otherwise, you’ll want to be aware of the chip and Wear OS version powering your watch. Mobvoi, for instance, took forever to roll out Wear OS 3 to its eligible Wear OS 2 watches and just recently announced the rollout of Wear OS 4. Speaking of Mobvoi, its TicWatch Pro 5 was the first to sport the new Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Plus in the US, and while it’s a great watch, you may want to wait until there are more W5 Plus watches to choose from. That said, the base W5 chip is also pretty good. The Pixel Watch 3 and OnePlus Watch 2 both sport the W5 and have notably better performance and battery life.
So long as you keep the aforementioned caveats in mind, Android users have more smartwatch options than ever before. I’ve rounded up my top picks, but if none of these is the right fit, you can always check out our fitness tracker buying guide.
Best smartwatch for Samsung phones
Sizes:43mm, 47mm /Weight:77g, 85g /Battery life:Up to 30 hours with AOD, 40 without AOD /Display type:Always-on OLED /GPS:Built-in GPS /Connectivity:LTE (optional), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi /Water resistance:Up to 50 meters, IP68 /Music storage:16GB
If you have a Samsung phone, you’ll get the most mileage out of a Samsung smartwatch. And of the four watches Samsung has in its current lineup, I recommend the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. Although Samsung just released the Galaxy Watch 7, there wasn’t a refresh for the Classic. That means you ought to be seeing some good deals for the Classic soon, if not already. It’s not often that I recommend a last-gen device, but such is my deep love for the physical rotating bezel.
But, if you want the latest and greatest, the Galaxy Watch 7 offers an upgraded 3nm Exynos W1000 chip and a new 3-in-1 BioActive Sensor. It’s a marginal improvement over last year’s models, but I don’t feel like Samsung introduced anything this year that requires having them. It also has Wear OS 5 and One UI 6 Watch, but that’ll eventually make its way back to the older watches, too. Mostly, I recommend the 7 if you prefer a smaller size, don’t care about the rotating bezel, and want something a smidge more futureproof.
The Classic’s rotating bezel is 15 percent thinner than the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. The updated design is sleeker than its predecessor, and the larger display is easier on the eyes and is only slightly bigger at 43mm and 47mm. I have small wrists, but the 47mm was still quite comfortable for everyday wear. It’s launching with Wear OS 4, which adds extended battery life, and — finally — cloud backups. One UI 5 Watch also adds some minor health and sleep tracking improvements, but this will eventually make its way to older models. While I prefer the Classic, the base Watch 6 model may be the better option if you want a smaller, lighter, sleeker, and cheaper smartwatch.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The 40mm Galaxy Watch 6 and the 47mm Watch 6 Classic are iterative updates, but deliver a familiar yet elevated experience.
For more outdoorsy folks, the $649.99 Galaxy Watch Ultra might be the more sensible choice. Of all Samsung’s watches, it has the best battery life, lasting around three days in our testing. (Though, we never got the full 100-hour estimated battery life.) It’s got dual-frequency GPS, a new multisport activity, an emergency siren, increased durability, 10ATM of water resistance, and a Quick Button, which acts as a customizable shortcut button. It’s basically an Apple Watch Ultra for Android.
Meanwhile, if you’re on a budget, there’s the new $199.99 Galaxy Watch FE, which is essentially a rebadged Galaxy Watch 4.
The Samsung Health app also delivers a good overall fitness tracking experience, especially since you can enable turn-by-turn navigation for hiking and cycling activities. We weren’t too impressed with nightly SpO2 readings, but Samsung’s overall sleep tracking continues to improve. You also get built-in GPS, body composition analysis, irregular heart rate notifications, fall detection, emergency SOS features, and EKGs. Most recently, Samsung’s added a new Energy score, AI-powered wellness insights, FDA-cleared sleep apnea detection, and a confusing AGEs Index metric for metabolic health. While the Energy score is broadly accurate, I found the AI-generated features to be hit or miss and the AGEs Index to be more gimmicky than useful. The latter feature is also limited to the Galaxy Watch 7 and Ultra.
We don’t necessarily recommend the Galaxy Watches if you don’t have a Samsung phone. EKGs and sleep apnea detection require the Samsung Health Monitor app, which is limited to Samsung phones. You can work around it, but all Samsung watches work best with other Samsung devices.
Sizes:41mm, 45mm /Weight:31g for 41mm, 37g for 45mm /Battery life:Roughly 24 hours with AOD enabled /Display type:Always-on OLED /GPS:Built-in GPS /Connectivity:LTE (optional), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Safety Signal with Fitbit Premium /Water resistance:5ATM /Music storage:32GB
The $349.99 Google Pixel Watch 3 is done playing catch-up. It’s an annoying truth that if you have a Samsung phone, a Samsung smartwatch is probably the best choice for you. However, for everyone else, I highly recommend the Pixel Watch 3.
There are several updates to the Pixel Watch 3, but the gist is that it’s a more refined watch that also expands into new territory. One major update this year is that there are now two sizes: 41mm and 45mm. You get extra screen real estate on the larger watch, but the bezels are also smaller on the 41mm model this year. (If you’re trying to pick between sizes, I prefer the 45mm.) The displays are brighter as well, ranging from a minimum of 1 nit to a maximum of 2,000 nits.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The 45mm model also wears small. The difference between the two sizes isn’t massive as far as wearability.
Health and fitness also get several updates, especially for runners. There’s a new Cardio Load metric that gauges the cardiovascular intensity of the exercises you’ve been doing over a set period of time. It’s similar to Garmin’s Training Load metric. You’re also given a Cardio Load target based on your fitness goals, readiness, and current activity. Runners also get a new dashboard full of form analysis metrics as well as the ability to program custom workouts. In addition, you can get AI-generated suggested workouts. And if you’re in Europe, the Pixel Watch 3 can now detect if you no longer have a pulse and call emergency services.
The Pixel Watch 3 also adds a bunch of nifty Google integrations. It’s excellent if you have a Google-powered smart home because you can now directly view and interact with your Nest Doorbell or camera feeds. You can also use the watch as a remote for your Google TV, and there are new Google Home Tile / complications that make controlling your home from your wrist a breeze. Also new this year are offline Google Maps, the ability to unlock Pixel phones, and a Call Assist feature that lets a caller know you need an extra minute to pick up your phone.
That said, while the Pixel Watch was initially framed as a watch for any Android phone, several updates this time around mean you’ll get the best experience with a Pixel phone. But compared to Samsung, there isn’t quite as much lock-in. Health features, for example, are available to everyone so long as you have a Fitbit account. Extra good news: Google removed certain metrics, like the Daily Readiness Score, from the Fitbit Premium paywall. Mostly, the features locked to Pixel phones are things like the ability to unlock your phone with the watch and use of the Recorder app.
One thing to be mindful of is durability. While the domed display is beautiful, we cracked the screen on the original Pixel Watch and got deep scratches on the Pixel Watch 2. (Thankfully, we haven’t messed up the Pixel Watch 3.) Google doesn’t offer any repair options, but you can get the Preferred Care extended warranty if you want to be prepared should something happen. It’s not ideal since it’s limited to the US and Canada, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Best alternative to Google and Samsung smartwatches
Sizes:47mm with 22mm straps /Weight:49g case, 80g with strap /Battery life:Up to 100 hours in smart mode, 48 with AOD on, and 12 days in power-saving mode /Display type:OLED touchscreen /GPS:Dual-frequency GPS, Beidou, GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, QZSS /Connectivity:Bluetooth, Wi-Fi /Water resistance:5ATM /Music storage:32GB
The $299.99 OnePlus Watch 2 is what a glow-up looks like. While the original OnePlus Watch was horrible, this watch helps fill the void that Fossil left when it said it was pulling out of Android smartwatches — namely, a viable alternative to Google and Samsung.
The 47mm case is big for petite wrists, and unfortunately, it only comes in one size, but it’s made of durable stainless steel and sapphire crystal. Plus, it houses a 500mAh battery. That, plus a dual-chip architecture and novel dual OS system, results in super long battery life. How long a smartwatch lasts will of course depend on your individual usage, but I got nearly four days with normal use. That’s incredible for a flagship.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The OnePlus Watch 2 has stupendous battery life.
It also has Wear OS 4, making it the only third-party Wear OS watch running the latest software. It has Google Assistant from the get-go — a big achievement since that’s been a problem with other third-party Android watches. Plus, you get access to the Google Play Store for a robust app ecosystem. On the fitness side of things, OnePlus added dual-frequency GPS. That’s a plus if you’re outdoorsy and frequent challenging GPS environments like dense forests or crowded cities.
The main things you’re giving up are LTE connectivity and some features like EKGs, atrial fibrillation detection, native period tracking, and fall detection. The lack of cellular is a bummer, as it means you really should keep your phone on you when you’re out and about. Still, the $300 price tag is a competitive one and may be worth the tradeoff given battery life.
Sizes:50mm with 24mm straps /Weight:44.3g /Battery life:Up to 80 hours /Display type:OLED touchscreen and secondary ultra-low power display /GPS:GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, Beidou /Connectivity:Bluetooth, Wi-Fi /Water resistance:5ATM /Music storage:32GB
Mobvoi’s TicWatch lineup has its devoted fans for a reason: super long battery life. The $249.99 TicWatch Pro 5 is no exception. It’s got an estimated 80 hours of battery life with standard use, a secondary ultra-low power display, and a massive (for a smartwatch you wear on your wrist, at least) 628mAh battery. I didn’t quite get 80 hours in my testing, but I did get a solid 48-60 hours even with heavy GPS use. That outclasses most of the watches in this category (except the OnePluS Watch 2) and is useful for backpackers and endurance athletes. It might not hold a candle to a top-of-the-line Garmin, but it’s also a smarter watch for a fraction of the price.
Battery life aside, the Pro 5 is a good option for fitness-focused people who aren’t keen on giving up smart capabilities for a Garmin or Polar. It’s also more durable. This time around, Mobvoi has also added a digital crown so you don’t have to worry about scrolling through menus with sweaty fingers. The flatter side button also reduces the risk of accidental presses.
Photo by Amelias Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The ULP display helps to extend battery life.
The Pro 5 also has an ingenious method of displaying heart rate. When you lift up your arm, the backlight changes color depending on which heart rate zone you’re in. That means you can instantly gauge whether to up the intensity or slow your roll. The Pro 5 also adds new training metrics, like VO2 Max and recovery time.
The TicWatch supports stress tracking, all-day blood oxygen monitoring, fatigue assessments, as well as atrial fibrillation and irregular heartbeat detection. For outdoorsy types, it also has access to multiple GNSS systems, and there’s a new barometer and compass app, as well as a one-tap measurement app that gives you a quick look at five metrics (heart rate, blood oxygen, stress, respiratory rate, and overall heart health).
It’s also pretty capable on the productivity front. You get contactless payments, access to the Play Store, notifications, and the ability to take calls. It’s also the only Android smartwatch available in the US with the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Plus chip, which is a plus in terms of futureproofing. The only major concerns are the 50mm case that may not suit smaller wrists and the lack of a digital assistant.
Sizes:37mm with 18mm straps /Weight:45g /Battery life:Up to 39 days /Display type:OLED display /GPS:Tethered GPS /Connectivity:Bluetooth /Water resistance:5ATM /Music storage:N/A
Hybrid smartwatches are an excellent way to keep things simple and subtle. The $249.95 Withings ScanWatch Light gets you the basics like push notifications, timers, and alarms. On the health front, you can track steps, sleep, menstrual cycles, and GPS workouts. (That said, GPS is tethered from your phone, not built in.) The design reminds me of a classier Swatch, particularly if you get the more colorful options in a minty green or pale blue. But the big reason the Light has dethroned our previous pick, the Garmin Vivomove Sport, is its extra-long battery life. Withings estimates it lasts up to 30 days on a single charge, and I got pretty close to that in testing with 25 days. Despite the Vivomove’s more appealing $180 price tag, it only lasts about five days.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The ScanWatch 2 (left) is a fancier version of the Light and has a few more health features.
If you want a bit more out of a hybrid, you can also opt for the ScanWatch 2. It’s an extra $100, but you get EKGs and atrial fibrillation detection, temperature sensors, SpO2 readings, and an altimeter for measuring elevation. It also looks a bit more elegant on the wrist, partly because of a secondary dial that tracks your daily step progress.
If neither matches your style, the Vivomove Sport is still a good option that gets you access to Garmin’s in-depth platform. Its Vivomove Trend is a slightly more upscale option that also supports Qi charging.
Sizes:41mm with 18mm straps; 45mm with 22mm straps /Weight:40g for the 3S; 47g for the 3 /Battery life:Up to 10 days for 3S; 14 days for 3 /Display type:OLED touchscreen /GPS:GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO /Connectivity:Bluetooth, Ant Plus, Wi-Fi /Water resistance:5ATM /Music storage:8GB
Garmin is best known for making rugged GPS watches that have excellent fitness features but aren’t so smart otherwise. But the $449.99 Venu 3 caters to people who want top-notch fitness tracking without sacrificing productivity features.
It’s got a colorful and vibrant always-on OLED display and comes in two sizes: 41mm and 45mm. Like its predecessor, the Venu 2 Plus, it also has a microphone and speaker so you can take and make calls directly from the wrist. It also has a clever workaround for digital assistants — it uses Bluetooth to work with whatever assistant is already on your phone. You’d think more fitness trackers would do this, but they don’t. It worked well in testing, though digital assistants aren’t always the smartest at understanding commands.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The Venu 3 series is a little pricey, but it’s the smartest watch Garmin’s got to offer.
The Venu 3 doesn’t have the best third-party app ecosystem, but it has Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music for offline playback. Android users can also send quick responses for texts, and the watch works with either iOS or Android for folks who want to keep their options open. It also has fall detection, live tracking, and contactless payments.
As for health features, it has Garmin’s latest heart rate sensor, which enables its FDA-cleared EKG app to detect atrial fibrillation. Otherwise, you get built-in GPS, continuous heart rate monitoring, all of the advanced coaching features in the Garmin Connect app, and Garmin’s famous in-depth health data. The Venu 3 also improves sleep tracking with nap detection and adds audio-guided meditation sessions. There’s also a new wheelchair mode.
This isn’t the most hardcore Garmin that money can buy, but it’s definitely the smartest. The price is a bit high compared to most smartwatches, but by Garmin standards, it’s middle-of-the-pack.
Size:46mm with 22mm straps /Weight:34g /Battery life:Up to 14 days /Display type:OLED touchscreen /GPS:Dual-frequency and 6 GNSS systems /Connectivity:Bluetooth, Wi-Fi /Water resistance:5ATM /Music storage:2.3GB
Amazfit’s made a name for itself making budget wearables that punch far above their weight. I’ve been consistently impressed by the GTR line of smartwatches over the years, and the $199.99 GTR 4 is no exception.
Not only does it have a classic look, but you also get 14 days of battery life and a color, always-on OLED display. New to the GTR 4 is dual-band GPS — a feature that Apple and Garmin only recently introduced to their higher-end smartwatches. Or, if you like to plan your own trail runs or hikes, you can import your own GPS routes, too. It tracks 150 sports and features all-day continuous heart rate monitoring. You can also monitor stress, sleep, and SpO2 levels. For smart features, you can take calls on the wrist, and it has two digital assistants: Alexa and a proprietary offline assistant. The device also syncs with Strava and Adidas Running.
Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge
The Amazfit GTR 4 is a budget option that punches above its weight.
The GTR 4 isn’t the best smartwatch around. Flagship watches can do everything the GTR 4 can do but in a sleeker, more polished package. However, they can’t do it at this price. If price is your main priority, this gets you incredible bang for your buck. Plus, you can frequently find Amazfit devices on sale. The icing on the cake is it works just as well on Android as it does on iOS.
Microsoft’s prototype Surface Laptop leaks with Intel’s Lunar Lake chips inside
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Microsoft launched its Surface Laptop 7 earlier this year without Intel chips, in a bid to promote Windows on Arm and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips. Now, it looks like a Surface Laptop might arrive next year with Intel’s latest Lunar Lake chips.
A Surface Laptop prototype has appeared in a since-deleted listing on Chinese second-hand marketplace Goofish, complete with what looks like Intel’s Core Ultra 7 268V processor inside. Windows Central spotted the listing, but it’s not clear if this will simply be a Surface Laptop 7 variant or a Surface Laptop 8.
Either way, the prototype laptop is clearly marked as such with a giant “prototype - not for sale” etching at the bottom of the device. While it’s easy to fake the CPU listing inside Windows, the appearance of the prototype label confirms this is likely a genuine unreleased laptop from Microsoft. It’s rare for such devices to leak, let alone be sold online.
If Microsoft is considering Lunar Lake chips for its Surface Laptop line, it would ensure there’s an Intel option for those who want Copilot Plus PC features. The Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 both shipped with Intel’s Meteor Lake processors earlier this year, but they didn’t include an NPU powerful enough for Microsoft’s Copilot Plus features. They were instead targeted at businesses, and lacked the refreshed designs found on the Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7.
The listing of this prototype Surface Laptop notes that the unannounced device should go on sale at some point in 2025, which could point to a CES 2025 announcement if Microsoft is readying this for consumers. The other possibility is Microsoft once again limiting Intel-based Surface devices to commercial customers.
We’ve asked Microsoft to comment on this leaked prototype, but the company didn’t respond in time for publication.
Amazon’s new Kindle family includes the first color Kindle
Amazon’s new Kindle family: The Colorsoft Signature Edition, Kindle Scribe, Paperwhite, and entry-level Kindle. | Image: Amazon
Amazon just announced four new Kindle e-readers. The Colorsoft Signature Edition is the first color Kindle, there’s a new Kindle Scribe note-taker, a faster version of its most popular Paperwhite, and a new entry-level Kindle.
The Spanish-language announcement with US pricing seems accidental as none of the links to the Amazon store currently work. Nevertheless, here’s what we know.
The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition is “designed to offer a rich and paper-like color” for book covers and highlighted text. Images can be zoomed in “without worrying about pixelation” with both standard and vibrant color styles. It’s waterproof and features fast page turns, wireless charging, up to 8 weeks of battery, and new light guide with nitride LEDs. It’ll cost $279.99 and ship on October 30th.
Image: Amazon
The new Colosoft Signature Edition.
Image: Amazon
The new Kindle Scribe.
The new Kindle Scribe is an e-reader and note-taker. The 300ppi screen has new white edges and is designed to feel like paper when writing on it when using Amazon’s Premium Pencil with new soft-tip eraser.
It also offers a “first-of-a-kind book writing experience” in addition to note-taking. Active Canvas lets you add notes directly to the pages of a book and the text flows around them. You’ll also be able to add notes in the side panel soon, which can be hidden later. The integrated notebook is infused with AI to summarize pages into concise points. Notes can also be made readable in preparation for export with a handwritten-style font.
The $399.99 Kindle Scribe will be ready for December 4th delivery with preorders starting today, according to the rogue announcement.
Image: Amazon
The new Kindle Paperwhite.
The Kindle Paperwhite is the “fastest kindle yet,” according to Amazon. The best-selling Kindle has a larger 7-inch screen, as rumored, allowing it to be thinner than previous generations while boasting a battery life of up to three months. It’s water resistant with 16GB of storage. Kindle Paperwhite “is now available” from $159.99. The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition is available for $199.99 with 32GB of storage and optional wireless charging and auto-adjusting front light.
Image: Amazon
The new entry-level Kindle.
The entry-level Kindle is also meant to be available today from $109.99 and weighs just 5.6 ounces. It offers a non-reflective 300ppi screen with faster page turns and 16GB of storage that can easily be held in one hand or slipped into a back pocket.
We’ll probably know more soon as details emerge, with links to actually buy or preorder the latest Kindles — so stay tuned.
Here’s a bunch of bananas shit Trump said today about breaking up Google
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
Former president Donald Trump threatened in an interview today that, if elected president, he would “do something” about Google but stopped short of specifically saying he would break up the company.
In the interview, Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait mentioned the US Justice Department’s proposal to possibly break up Google and asked Trump if Google should be broken up. Trump initially didn’t address Google at all, instead seemingly zeroing in on the Justice Department part of that question to rant about a recent DOJ lawsuit against Virginia election officials.
But after Micklethwait got Trump back on course (“the question is about Google, President Trump”), Trump expressed his unhappiness with how “bad stories” seem to surface more on Google and how he called the “head” of Google to express his frustration:
Yeah, look, Google’s got a lot of power. They’re very bad to me. Very, very bad to me. I can speak from that standpoint. They only have bad stories... in other words, if I have 20 good stories and 20 bad stories, and everyone’s entitled to that, you’ll only see the 20 bad stories. I called the head of Google the other day and I said, “I’m getting a lot of good stories lately, but you don’t find them in Google.” I think it’s a whole rigged deal. I think Google’s rigged just like our government’s rigged all over the place.
Presumably, Trump is referring to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai here. Google wouldn’t confirm to The Verge if Trump had actually called Pichai.
Micklethwait then asked, “so you would break them up, in other words?” And that’s where Trump said he’d “do something” to Google before starting to pivot into a conversation about China:
I’d do something. But you have to have... look, I give them a lot of credit. They’ve become such a power. Such a power. And you’ve got to give them credit for that. How they became a power is really the discussion. At the same time, it’s a very dangerous thing because we want to have great companies. We don’t want China to have these companies. Right now, China is afraid of Google. China is a very powerful, very smart group of people, I will tell you that from personal experi--
Micklethwait then asked Trump if he would force ByteDance to sell TikTok. Trump demurred with a confusing discussion about the attempted TikTok ban from his administration. Micklethwait followed up to ask why Trump no longer sees TikTok as a security threat, and Trump used that to turn the conversation back to Google.
In this part of the interview, Trump said that instead of breaking the company up, unspecified changes could be implemented to make things “more fair.” He also claimed that Pichai told Trump that he was the “number one person” on “all of Google” for stories before falling back onto some of his usual rhetoric about fake news.
The full quote:
I think it is a threat. Frankly I think everything’s a threat. There’s nothing that’s not a threat. But sometimes you have to fight through these threats. Like, Google: I’m not a fan of Google. They treat me badly. But are you going to destroy the company by doing that? If you do that are you going to destroy the company? What you can do, without breaking it up, is make sure it’s more fair. They do treat me very badly. Oh and he told me, “No way, you’re the number one person on all of Google for stories.” Which probably makes sense to be honest to me, most of them are bad stories, but these are minor details, right? And it’s only bad because of fake news. Because the news is really fake. That’s the one we really have to straighten out. We have to straighten out our press because we have a corrupt press. [Applause]
These aren’t the first vague statements toward Google from Trump during this election cycle. In August, Trump said that Google “has to be careful” and that he “had a feeling Google is going to be close to shut down.” JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, called for a breakup of Google in February.
For a couple of years, there was nothing on the internet so simultaneously thrilling and terrifying as having your website hit the front page of Digg. Thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands, would immediately come to your site — and there’s a good chance they’d crash it in the process. Hundreds of commenters would debate the merits of whatever you’d created or published, pick fights with you and each other about it, and make you feel like the internet’s main character. At least for a few minutes, until something bigger and newer and more controversial hit Digg.com and everyone moved on.
In its early days, Digg was something like the homepage of the internet. Any user could submit a link, and then any other user could either promote it with a “dig” or demote it with a “bury.” The best and most popular stuff made the homepage, which was seen by tens of millions of people a month. The most controversial stuff had epic comments sections.
So many of Digg’s features, from its voting mechanism to its commenting system to its occasional teeming toxicity, are omnipresent on the internet now. But in 2004, when Kevin Rose was working on the first versions of his new news platform — back when he was best known as a host on the TechTV network — it was all brand new. And what Rose and others built during that time has changed the way we all use the internet ever since.
I recently chatted with Rose, who is now a podcaster and investor, about why he built Digg the way he did and why he felt like giving users transparency and control was so important. We also talked about the legacy of some of the tools he helped create, the death of the homepage and the rise of the news feed, and what happens when your company goes from a fun idea to a potential cash cow. In the last 20 years, Rose has seen just about every corner of the tech industry, and he thinks there’s a case for Digg to make a comeback now — but only in a very different corporate form.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How do you remember the internet from right before you started working on Digg?
There was some social activity showing up for the first time, where we saw people kind of coming together — Friendster was a big social network, and it was like, “Whoa, I can friend people and kind of see what they’re up to.” And that felt really different. We had email, obviously. We had walled gardens like AOL and all those other platforms that came before that were allowing us to chat. But not everyone was online, you know? It just wasn’t a thing.
So, I was playing around with Friendster, and then I remember seeing Delicious for social bookmarking. That was really interesting: people are actually bookmarking and saving things they want to revisit later. That was another signal. And then Flickr became a place to publicly share photos, and it was a really odd thing to say, “I’m going to expose some of my personal photos.” It felt weird because photos were always such a private thing. People were taking them on digital cameras and syncing their cameras to their computers and downloading the photos from their computers via, like, USB cables.
I just remember thinking, Okay, people are starting to connect in ways that I hadn’t seen before. They’re starting to share information that had previously been locked away. And then I was a big fan of Slashdot. Slashdot was tech news, and they were 100 percent user-submitted stories. They just had no way to rank them. It was an editor that chose which ones were on the front page, and they wouldn’t provide any visibility into what was being submitted. That’s so weird! You’re taking all these submissions, but you’re not showing everybody else all the cool stuff that’s being submitted? It seems like gatekeeping. Why not allow everyone to see that stuff and actually vote on it?
And then, this really weird thing happened where this technology started being supported by browsers, which was Asynchronous JavaScript — they call it Ajax — which allowed you to click on something and see the page refresh without having to go to another page.
That was what made Gmail feel so magical!
Yes, exactly. It was like it was the technology that unlocked so much of what we saw on Web 2.0, because someone could click on a voting button, and we could see the number go up without having to go to another page. In the first version of Digg, if you clicked to dig something, it would take you to another page that was like, “Thank you for your Digg.” Then, when we saw Ajax, I was like, “Oh, wow, this allows us to do inline voting. Let’s add it.” We got that working pretty quick. We made this really cool animated kind of fade-in and fade-out effect, and people were like, “Wow, I just like voted on something and saw the number go up.” It sounds so silly now, but it was a pretty big deal back then.
Digg was all tech news for, like, the first month, and I launched it because I thought, well, this would be an improved, more social version of Slashdot. And as being a geek, I kind of wanted to just figure out: Is there something here? Are there nuggets that the editors of Slashdot are overlooking that the masses would come together and vote on and bring to the surface? Then, we noticed that people were submitting stuff that was just like outside of the tech realm. And the people were just asking for more expansion of our items that we allowed people to submit. It was like, ‘Okay, well, let’s go broader here and just see what that surfaces.” And it just started working.
It was such a smash-up of things. But at the same time, no one had really done voting. There was no way to say, like, “I vote on a piece of content.” And for me, it was such a no-brainer. Like, of course we’re gonna vote on things on the internet later. This should exist. We did a handful of iterations on that stuff. And Daniel [Burka, a designer who eventually worked at Digg] picked a really cool color palette — he made it yellow. And we went back and forth on whether it should be an arrow or a thumb. He designed a little thumb, and I didn’t like the way some of the fingers looked, so we redesigned it. We went back and forth a few times there. And we eventually got to this idea of a thumb going up with a number next to it, which, again, I know it sounds simple, but we’ve never seen that before.
Do you ever wonder, if you had come up with something completely different — instead of a thumb, it was like an alligator pointing upward — if now there would just be upward pointing alligators all over the internet?
It was a very strange thing, where I think it was so universally known as, like, “I like this,” that it was easy for people to copy it, you know?
But the thing that was really interesting is that we started realizing, well, these votes — we can take them, and we can feed them back into our algorithm that we were developing and actually, hopefully, put together a customized news feed based on what you’re liking. And so that’s the stuff that we patented and actually ended up being the most valuable asset that we had. We sold Digg for, like, nothing — half a million dollars or something — that Betaworks bought and took it over. But the patents we sold for millions of dollars to LinkedIn. The patents were so valuable to LinkedIn because they were adding a lot of social elements. They wanted a defensive patent strategy against Facebook, and so they ended up buying the patents.
They’ve never been tested because I think that, obviously, Facebook knows that we have prior art on all that stuff, the like button and all that. Maybe a year and a half or two years later, Mark [Zuckerberg] came to my office and was talking to me a bunch about that because it was a brief period in time where we were larger than Facebook. He was asking me a lot of questions about, you know, digs and how they worked.
To be fair, though, I never wanted to get defensive about it. I thought of this is as something universal that all sites could apply — I didn’t invent voting, so it felt very odd for me to file a patent on something and try to block other sites from doing it. And so our legal folks had told us to get patents just because you’ll want to have them again, for just defensive purposes.
It seems you had to choose, relatively early on at Digg, “How do we decide what’s popular?” I think my assumption was always that whatever gets the most digs win — pure meritocracy. But then it sounds like pretty quickly you run into: okay, this system doesn’t work for a whole variety of reasons. It’s not what you want to be about, it’s a gameable system, on and on. And then you have to start thinking, “Okay, what are the other metrics of success that we care about?” I think you can track the whole course of the next 20 years by the metrics of success we decided to care about on the internet. I’m curious how you thought through that — what else you decided was important.
In Digg V1, I had an admin interface that had every single category listed out, and then it said the number of digs that had to hit in order for it to go on the homepage.
Like a hardcoded number for each one?
Yep, that was all it was. Just kind of thumb in the air — if a category was becoming more and more popular and more people were visiting it, then we would increase those numbers and bump them up every couple of weeks.
And then, to your point, once people started getting a lot of traffic, they started encouraging their own audiences to go and dig our stuff. And then we would see a few things. One, we see that they didn’t discover it organically because there was, like, no referrer. They’d directly to the permalink page, and they would dig from that page, and they hadn’t done anything else on the site. So, that was one signal. Or we saw one IP address would have like 50 digs from it, and so it would be like everyone in the office.
I remember one time, there was a CNET article, and it had like 100 and some odd digs to it. And it was sitting there sitting on the Upcoming section, but it hadn’t made the jump over to the homepage. Because if it all came from a single IP address, we would heavily discount the digs — “karma,” we called it behind the scenes. Karma was a combination of like… my god, it was, it was a nightmare. It was a nest of things. How new are the accounts? How many of them came from finding it naturally through an up-and-coming section versus going directly to the link itself? How many were unique IP addresses? There was just a bunch of stuff that went into it — how long they went and clicked out, and actually, did they click out and visit the article prior to digging it? You know, things like that.
So, there’s probably about 10 or 15 different weights that we had internally. And people were getting pissed. They would think Digg is a scam: “It’s at 115, and it’s not making the homepage!” And we couldn’t say, “Yeah, it’s because everyone at CNET dug this article, and we’re not going to let it get on the homepage.”
It was just a challenging time because then you’re fighting a PR battle, which is like, how do we prove that something is fair? I don’t care if this article makes the front page; I just want to make sure it’s truly wisdom of the crowds.
Honestly, I think that Reddit did the right thing where they deputize people to make those decisions along with an algorithm versus it just being our internal editors that were looking at stuff.
Is that process disillusioning at some point? You come into this because what you want is transparency, and you want everyone to be able to see and for it to be a true meritocracy. And then, oh, a true meritocracy actually just super doesn’t work.
I should have learned this lesson several times over now at this point in my career. But anytime there is a financial incentive, you’re gonna get bad participants, and they come out of the woodwork in the tens of thousands. So, you know, when Digg was doing 30-something million monthly uniques, we were banning thousands of accounts per day. We couldn’t even keep up with it. There was so much to be gained from getting your story on the front page of Digg. Once an international audience caught on where they could just hire and outsource people to just sit there and create fake accounts, it was an absolute nightmare.
The thing I remember about Digg is how much that front page was a thing. And I think part of the reason I wanted to talk to you in the first place is I think we’ve lost that idea — homepages don’t really exist anymore, and I miss that.But now I’m wondering if this push toward individualizing and personalizing the experience is just a response to trying to let the system work at scale, and it just doesn’t.
I think that’s right. But we did it the wrong way. It was really challenging because we had grown the team quite a bit, to 50-plus heads. And we had an immature ad platform and advertisers that didn’t know how to or whether they could trust advertising on Digg. And because Digg would get very toxic at times — you’d get a very heavily debated political article that hits the homepage — it felt like we really didn’t have control over the site. So, you would get advertisers that would say, “I don’t know, this content seems a little too dicey for me.”
We had this moment where our investors were like, “You need to clean up the site, and make it more profitable, because you’re gonna have a hard time raising future rounds of financing.” I think what Reddit did, in retrospect, that was quite smart was they kept the team relatively small and kind of let the market mature around them. I feel like we kind of grew the team to an incredible burn, and then we tried to go way too commercial and make it more of a cleaned-up experience. But in reality, the majority of people were coming there for the odd, weird stuff that they couldn’t find anywhere else.
Could you have said back in the day, “This super controversial, political stuff that everybody’s yelling at each other about, is just not what we do here. We’re going to boot this stuff off the platform”? Is that a choice you could have made? Is it just weights you should have made?
It was growing so fast, it was some of our hottest content! It was insane how engaged political users are. They are some of the most hardcore in terms of usage and commenting; they’re just addicted to this stuff. And so it was becoming more of our traffic. I think we should have given them their own area to play and said, “Hey, this is your arena. Go create and have fun.”
Is it possible to do the thing you were trying to do at actual scale? Or does everything eventually get too big to make sense as one cohesive thing?
I think you just hit hard caps on the size you can grow to. There’s only so many people that are gonna be interested in just a singular homepage of content, you know? I feel like we could have been the better version of Slashdot and continued to dominate and been a huge, massive tech source. Techmeme Plus Plus or whatever. I think we could have buckled down and said, “Digg is 10 employees or 15 or whatever, and we’re all about this. We’re not going to do X, Y, and Z. Let’s put some guardrails in place here and just be a great little niche site.”
It’s funny, now, because I actually really wanted it to be a tech news website. And it was the community and others that ended up joining the team that pushed and forced my hand — not forced it but really said, “We should go for something bigger here.” And then once you get investors involved, there’s a lot of people sitting around the table that want to see you have that billion-dollar-plus outcome.
And you push on that idea of bigger things long enough, and you eventually just end up with social networks, which, to some extent, seems like what happened, right? Did you have conversations about trying to go be a social network?
We were being crushed on that side, especially once Twitter started gaining momentum. I noticed pretty quickly that Twitter was breaking news stories faster than we were.
Their simple “What are you up to today?” box was so different from our flow. Our flow was like: give us a URL, give us a story. We didn’t allow text-based submissions — you had to have a URL associated with it.
And I’m not a fan of feature parity or copying other websites. I thought Twitter was doing Twitter just fine, you know? I didn’t want to just clone what they had done.
Kind of an unusual perspective these days.
Well, back then, it was actually frowned upon. When people would launch something new, if it was something where we were like, “Huh, I hadn’t thought about that,” we didn’t copy each other’s stuff. We were like, “Wow, they did a really good job, bravo to them.” I’m not going to take that feature. That’s something they came up with.
Nothing ever really came along to try and do Digg better than Digg or take that idea to the next level. If I wanted to go find something cool on the internet, in 2004-ish, I was sort of spoiled for choice. Since then, I’m just gonna go to one of my news feeds and hope there’s something there. That serves a purpose, but not the same one, and I’ve never really been able to figure out why that idea of the universal homepage just sort of went away.
We like to believe there’s this idea of a universal homepage. But in reality, if any company wants to go for scale, they just can’t rely upon this idea that 40 to 50 stories per day are gonna globally fit everyone’s tastes. And otherwise, you’re just capped at a hard number of users that like that particular angle of things.
Like, now, if you want to know about the best, weirdest programming shit, it’s Hacker News. If you want to just see globally what’s happening in tech, Techmeme’s the spot. Product Hunt probably still serves up-and-coming new things on the app side. So, there are certain ways that we get that information. But for me, because we have so many different varying interests, social networks just serve us so much better. I can be on a social network and get the craziest news around the Klotho protein and how it extends life and, at the same time, get wacky, crazy poodles jumping over plastic cups to the Zelda theme music — I have an account that does just that, which is amazing. I can get all of my personal uniqueness that is me, solved by just following a handful of accounts that represent me.
There’s a theory there, though, that says the whole “wisdom of the crowd” idea has just gone away. And now it’s been replaced by individual people but also this amalgamation of stuff I’ve signaled that I care about. And what matters is the system getting better at giving it back to me. But it means the idea of “the internet” being one thing has just died.
I think just the internet got too big. And also, honestly, I believe the wisdom of the crowds can produce really boring, non-sophisticated results. So, for me, it’s about personal curation of tastemakers and people that I trust, and that circle can expand or detract depending on the year or my interest over time.
But I feel you in that, sometimes, I wish I could just get a better zeitgeist of what’s going on globally that is outside of my bubble, right? Because the danger here is that we’re just being kind of spoon-fed the stuff that we already love. And so, how’s it introducing new perspectives and new ideas and, you know, turning me on to new information that I wouldn’t normally see, right? And I think that that is the downside of and the bummer to all of this, you know, is missing out on some of that.
How do you do that now? You’re a curious guy learning lots of new things — when you’re like, “What cool stuff is happening?” — where do you go?
I bounce around. I use Glimpse a lot; it’s a great way to see trends as they’re starting to pop off. I have a handful of newsletters I subscribe to that I consider high-quality.
It’s funny: there are two sides of my personality type. One is to play at the edges and break things and make sure I never lose that because that has served me well as an investor and allows me to hopefully see around corners early. And then there’s another part of me that, literally, I’ve spent the last two weeks just going deep on dumb phones and how we can disconnect from this technology.
I’m toying around with this idea of touching grass more, but yet figuring out the time and ways to play and have fun at the edges as well. I think most of us are leaning way too far in on being just always on our devices. And I’m getting really serious about trying to figure out what that balance is for me. I’d like for it to be the next chapter of what I work on, being really thoughtful about trying to encourage people to find balance, because I think we’ve gone way too far on the other side of having to say to ourselves, Am I missing something?
It’s kind of the end point of that 20-year cycle, right? We went to everything being endless all the time, and everyone is slowly realizing why that’s a problem. I hear more and more people all the time talking about dumb phones and talking about curation. And it’s why everybody loves email newsletters now. It turns the internet back into a thing that I do. And then I put it down. And we spent 20 years forgetting how to put it down.
As I think about the universal homepage thing, part of me thinks we need that more than ever now. Instead of having to go to 50 websites and 10 different forums and read 20 newsletters, how can I just get a quick sense of what people care about and what they’re saying… and then move on to my life?
I think you’re absolutely right. If you can find out who owns Digg, I would love to buy it back from them and turn it back into that old-school homepage. So, I don’t know if you have any connections…
I’ll look into it. But let’s just quickly reboot Digg right here, for 2024. What would you do?
I would heavily lean into AI on this front — AI for vetting and AI for a bunch of different things. If someone posts a comment, you could instantly run it against AI and say, “Is this comment additive to the article of substance, or is it attacking someone?” There could be some really interesting positive use cases for AI here to help with keeping things civil. I would lean pretty heavily on AI for both summaries for content moderation.
I would not want to embrace an ad model. I’d much rather have it be almost more Wikipedia-style, where it’s community-supported in some way. It wouldn’t be about building the next billion-dollar, publicly traded company, but more like a utility for good. I would want to really lean in heavily on this idea of providing a safe place for people. It’s unfortunate to me that I’ve had to step away from several different social networks out there because they just can be so toxic at times. And so I would want to spend a great deal of time thinking through those issues.
It would be important to go out and probably sit down with 50 or 100 of the largest moderators on Reddit and ask them what features and functionality they’re missing that they would like to see and have it really be community-driven features and functionality on the site versus top-down telling you what you should have. I don’t know. I think that’d be a good place to start.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25626805/DSC08374_alt_3.jpg)
Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25626290/247263_iphone_16_pro_AKrales_0738.jpg)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25626683/DSC08407.jpg)
Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24020920/226270_IPHONE_14_REGULAR_PHO_akrales_0736.jpg)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23307883/ajohnson_221103_5070_0003.jpg)
Image: Allison Johnson / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24816190/236731_Samsung_Galaxy_Watch_6_AKrales_0180.jpg)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25610299/247234_Pixel_Watch_3_AKrales_0205.jpg){kind=tracking}
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25379979/247069_Oneplus_watch_2_AKrales_0125.jpg)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24666161/236670_Mobvoi_TicWatch_Pro_5_AKrales_0091.jpg)
Photo by Amelias Holowaty Krales / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25282437/247014_Withings_ScanWatch_2_Light_AKrales_0117.jpg)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25047640/236839_Garmin_Venu_3_AKrales_0153.jpg)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24183073/IMG_0349_2_2.jpg)
Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25680465/download.jpeg)
Image: Amazon
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25680460/90_6.jpeg)
Image: Amazon
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25680461/90_5.jpeg)
Image: Amazon
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25680462/90_2.jpeg)
Image: Amazon
