Twitter gets special permission to be ‘X’ in the iOS App Store
Illustration: The Verge
Twitter, which is rebranding as X, is now listed as X in the iOS App Store, suggesting the app got special treatment from Apple to allow a single-character name. The renaming was briefly hindered by a rule forbidding single-character app names within the App Store — the actual app name on iPhones and iPads already showed up as X.
The exception could be a sign Apple wants to keep the hatchet buried with X owner Elon Musk. Late last year, the then-CEO of Twitter accused Apple of threatening to remove the Twitter app from the store. After meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Musk later said it was a simple “misunderstanding.”
Alongside the X rebranding, the company also updated its tagline in the store, from “it’s what’s happening” to “blaze your glory!” — a phrase that Musk tweeted (er, sorry, posted) this morning.
Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge
Twitter is now simply “X” in the iOS App Store.
Twitter has been clumsily transitioning to X for about the last week. The social network’s new “interim” logo, which was tweeted at Musk by a Twitter user and looks suspiciously like a Unicode symbol, was added to the site after Musk tweeted about it several times the day before. The symbol feels a little more permanent now as the company has jammed an obnoxious brightly-lit version of it on top of its headquarters in San Francisco.
The former official account of Twitter on the network also switched to simply @X after the handle was taken from a user who’d had it since 2007. But the company still has some ground to cover before the transition is complete. The Twitter.com domain name still doesn’t redirect to X.com (it’s currently the other way around), Twitter Blue is still Twitter Blue, and the company’s support page is still lousy with references to “Twitter.”
Loki season 2 looks like a race through time and space in new trailer
Image: Disney
Loki’s first season ended by cracking the multiverse so wide open that it seemed like all of existence might be in serious jeopardy or at least on the verge of being conquered by a certain Kang. Both of those possibilities have seemed like they’re becoming realities judging from Marvel’s recent films, but in the first trailer for Loki’s upcoming second season, there appears to be some hope that things can still be put right.
After two Spider-Verse movies about people traveling to other dimensions and glitching out because they’re not supposed to be there, it’s interesting to see Loki (Tom Hiddleston) “time slipping” in Loki’s new season 2 trailer, both because of the visual similarities between the two phenomena and because it’s something few people understand. Somehow, the god of mischief is uncontrollably jumping to random points in the timeline, and while neither Time Variance Authority agent Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) nor agent Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan) can explain why, all signs in Loki’s new trailer point to Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) being the cause.
In addition to Loki’s timeslipping within the TVA — something that’s not supposed to be possible — the trailer establishes how many of the organization’s other employees, like Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku), Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), Casey (Eugene Cordero), and Miss Minutes (Tara Strong), will once again find themselves navigating through strange timelines where things don’t always line up the way one might expect them to. What’s even more interesting, though, is the exchange Loki has with his alternate reality variant Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) about the two of them being gods and the brief glimpse the trailer features of one (or perhaps both of them) doing some fancy Asgardian magic.
Unsurprisingly, Majors’ Kang the Conqueror is both very present (see: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty) and doesn’t say all that much in the trailer, which leaves it unclear just how large a role he’ll have in Loki’s second season. But given that the villain formerly known as He Who Remains is meant to be the MCU’s next Big Bad™, one imagines that his role in Loki’s season 2 is going to be the subject of quite a bit of discussion when the show returns.
Microsoft argues its Activision Blizzard case with UK regulators
Illustration by William Joel / The Verge
Microsoft has submitted a new change of circumstances document to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK, arguing its case for its proposed Activision Blizzard deal to be reconsidered for approval.
The CMA first blocked Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard in April, with the regulator making it clear it had concerns over the effect Microsoft’s acquisition could have on the emerging cloud gaming market. Weeks later, the European Commission then approved the deal thanks to Microsoft’s cloud gaming agreements with Nvidia, Boosteroid, and others and a commitment to the EU to open up cloud licensing access to Xbox and Activision Blizzard games.
Image: CMA
Details on Microsoft’s Sony agreement are heavily redacted.
Microsoft’s document is heavily redacted, so references to the company’s 10-year agreement with Sony over Call of Duty don’t shed any new light on the deal terms. We also still don’t have details of Microsoft’s final proposal to restructure its Activision deal, either, but the CMA is looking for comments from Microsoft’s rivals by August 4th and will accept final undertakings or make a final order by August 29th.
That means we should get more details on Microsoft’s final proposal in the coming weeks. Microsoft recently agreed to an extension to its $68.7 billion deal with Activision, pushing the new deal deadline to October 18th. The extension gives Microsoft and Activision plenty of time to attempt to address the CMA’s cloud gaming concerns.
Twitter Threatens to Sue Center for Countering Digital Hate Over Research The Center for Countering Digital Hate said it had received a letter from X, Twitter’s parent company, accusing it of trying to hurt the social platform with its research.
Sony’s latest PS5 beta supports Dolby Atmos and up to 8TB of M.2 SSD storage
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Sony has started testing a new PlayStation 5 software beta that includes Dolby Atmos support, up to 8TB of M.2 SSD storage support, and a variety UI improvements. The beta is rolling out in select countries today and Sony typically makes beta features available to all PS5 consoles within a few months.
The biggest addition is Dolby Atmos support. In PS5 games it looks like Sony’s 3D Audio implementation (Tempest 3D AudioTech) will be compatible with Dolby Atmos devices like sound bars, TVs, or home theater systems. Media apps like Netflix can also update their apps on PS5 soon to support Dolby Atmos audio. “Tempest 3D AudioTech specifically renders to the Dolby Atmos audio devices in use – including overhead channels – allowing for even greater levels of immersion in the audioscapes of PS5 games,” explains Sony in a PlayStation blog.
Image: Sony
The new Dolby Atmos support.
The PS5 currently supports up to 4TB of expandable M.2 SSD storage, but that maximum is being increased to a 8TB limit with this beta software. You’ll still need an M.2 SSD that meets the minimum requirements (mostly 5,500 MB/s or faster), but a doubling of the storage limit means there are even more storage options for PS5 owners.
Sony is also adding a bunch of UI improvements and some quality of life changes with this latest PS5 software update. You can now mute the PS5 beep sound that chirps when you turn the console on or off, or when it goes into rest mode. Sony is also offering up the option to simply change the beep volume, too.
You’ll also get a new option to enable haptic feedback from a DualSense controller while navigating around the PS5 user interface. Sound effects like moving focus from one section to another will trigger haptics with this option enabled, alongside haptic feedback for when you reach the end of a scrollable section.
Image: Sony
Second controller support.
This controller haptic feedback is available alongside a new accessibility feature that lets you assign a second controller to one account to use it as an assist controller. This is great for helping children or friends complete a difficult part of a game, or navigating around the PS5 UI.
Sony is also improving the PS5 social aspects. You’ll now be able to invite players into a closed party without adding them to a group, and also send open or closed party invites to groups instead of just a single friend. Much like Discord, you can now see a preview of someone sharing their screen before you join a party, and it’s now easier to see which friends are in parties in the friends tab. Sony is also adding emoji reactions for messages.
You can sign up to get access to Sony’s PS5 betas right here, and this particular update should roll out to all PS5 consoles in the coming months.
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‘X’ on Twitter’s Headquarters Faces Investigation Over Permit Violations An “X” sign, installed on the roof of the company’s headquarters in San Francisco as part of its rebranding, lacked proper permits, officials said.
Apple confirms bug stops Screen Time limits from sticking for kids
Illustration: The Verge
If your kid has been mysteriously busting through the Screen Time limits you set on their Apple device, the Wall Street Journal might know why: the publication found that a bug has been preventing certain Screen Time limits set via the Family Sharing system from saving correctly for months. Apple was supposed to fix the issue back in May, but apparently the problem has persisted.
Apple’s Family Sharing system allows parents to put usage limits on their kids’ devices, with one of the key controls being the ability to monitor and limit their usage of specific apps and the device as a whole through a feature called Screen Time. The Journal reports finding that a specific setting known as Downtime, which blocks access to the entire device, has been failing to save correctly; in one case, someone had to set Downtime limits three times before the limit properly saved. In the meantime, kids might have had more access to their device than parents wanted.
Apple confirmed the ongoing bug to the the Journal and said that it’s working on solutions, but it didn’t offer any kind of timeline. “We are aware that some users may be experiencing an issue where Screen Time settings are unexpectedly reset,” Apple told the Journal. “We take these reports very seriously and we have been, and will continue, making updates to improve the situation.”
iPhone 15 Pro might get a titanium frame, thinner bezels, and a price hike
An iPhone 14 Pro Max. | Image: Nilay Patel / The Verge
Some big changes are expected to come to this year’s iPhone 15 Pro lineup — but they might come alongside a price hike, too. In Bloomberg this morning, reporter Mark Gurman confirmed a handful of details that have been floating around all year about what to expect when the next iPhone lineup is announced in just over a month.
The new Pro models will both come with titanium frames, instead of stainless steel, making them stronger and lighter, according to Gurman. Their screens will also have thinner bezels, thanks to a new display technology, shrinking the size of the black border by about a third. (Earlier leaks show what that might look like.) And as previously reported, expect the mute switch to be swapped out for a customizable button and the Lightning port to be replaced by USB-C.
That might all come at a price, though. Gurman says he expects a price increase outside the US, and “wouldn’t rule out a price increase in the US,” either. That follows reporting earlier this week and an analyst note suggesting prices could go up by up to $200 when it comes to the Max model.
Gurman mentions two other big upgrades coming to Apple’s devices this year. The standard iPhone model is expected to drop the notch in favor of the Dynamic Island, bringing it more on par with the Pro models. (Previously rumors suggested it’ll be stuck at a 60Hz refresh rate, though, instead of 120Hz like the Pros — and virtually all comparably priced Android phones.) Gurman also reports that the next Apple Watch processor, the S9, will have a “fairly sizable performance bump,” marking the first notable speed boost since 2020.
Apple normally announces its new iPhones and Apple Watches in mid-September. They’ll be going up against Samsung’s new lineup of folding and flipping phones, which were just updated this week.
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Barnes & Noble is reinventing itself, but not its e-readers
The Nook Glowlight 4e struggles to stand out, but at least it’s got buttons to turn the page. | Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge
The company is looking to give its stores an indie bookstore vibe, but its e-readers have more of an Amazon Kindle in the early 2010s vibe.
My first e-reader wasn’t a Kindle, it was a Nook. It had a 6-inch 167 ppi E-Ink display and a tiny, terrible, but exciting LED display underneath. There was a headphone jack, wi-fi, and a music player built right in. Coming out a year before the iPad, it felt electric. It felt like Star Trek. It felt like the perfect bridge device between my smartphone and my computer. But soon Amazon turned its considerable might, and ability to subsidize its ebook business with all its other more lucrative businesses, against Barnes & Noble, and as it raced Amazon to the cheapest e-reader Barnes & Noble lost whatever identity its e-reader division was developing.
Now, years after Amazon won and Barnes & Noble lost, the company is privately held and it has a new CEO, James Daunt. Daunt was brought on in 2019 to help save the company that had been devastated by high rents on its stores, a precipitous decline in sales, and the aforementioned retail giant. Daunt’s vision for the indie bookstore killer approaches the ironic. The once giant of publishing is handing control of its stores to its managers, attempting to instill in each of its stores the independent spirit it used to quash. Wall Street Journal has a profile of the company out this week that’s a fascinating look at how Barnes & Noble is learning to compete with Amazon without cannibalizing itself in the process.
The Nook business doesn’t come up in the profile, and thats probably for the best. When you’re trying to rebrand your company as indie and cool you can’t show up with the Nook. While most e-readers are slim, with small bezels and sleek exteriors, the E-Ink part of the Nook line up looks like it stumbled out of 2012. Looking at it I feel the urge to ask the Glowlight 4 who the president is.
Image by Barnes & Noble
The Nook Glowlight 4 looks familiar...
And I don’t think it’s supposed to be this way. When Daunt launched the $149 Nook Glowlight 4 in 2021 he said that the company was looking to “reinvigorate Nook in the coming months and years.” Since than the company released four ebook-reading devices. There’s the 10-inch Android tablet made by Lenovo, that...looks like every other $130 tablet. But at least it’s got the Google Play Store on the home screen so you can choose which e-reader app you use.
Then there are the E-Ink readers. The flagship is the Nook Glowlight 4 which is a little more expensive than the Kindle and a little cheaper than the Kobo, and few features lighter than both. But it does have page turning buttons! The $99 Nook Glowlight 4e has page-turning buttons too, but sacrifices even more than the Glowlight 4 to keep its price low. Namely the quality kind of sucks. We had lots of issues with responsiveness which is probably the most frustrating sin an e-reader can commit. If I press a button to turn the page...I need the page to turn.
In September Barnes & Noble is going to try and turn things around with the $199 GlowLight 4 Plus. It’s waterproof. It’s got a headphone jack and Bluetooth. There is 32GB of onboard storage and a front-lit E-Ink display with 300ppi resolution and color temperature control. It’s not that first generation Nook from way back in 2009, but it feels more exciting than what Amazon is offering at the same price.
The problem is, like the other Nook e-readers its kind of dorky, and if you’re already in the Kindle ecosystem—which a lot of people are—there’s not a super compelling reason to switch over beyond a desire to cut the Amazon cord or because you love buttons.
Image by Barnes & Noble
You can’t see it, but this thing has a headphone jack.
The Nook lineup includes a couple of other features that should theoretically be compelling, but always come up just short. For example, you can access library books on the Nook, but keeping with the early 2010 theme of this lineup, you will need a USB cable and Adobe software. Meanwhile Overdrive can send books to your Kindle directly, and while it can be difficult to set up, Kobo has Overdrive built in.
It’s unclear how Daunt’s current “reinvigoration” of the Nook brand is going for the company financially, but from the outside I don’t see how it can be doing anything but breaking even. Anti-Amazon customers and Nook diehards who never switched can’t be that much of a market, and it also has to compete with Kobo to woo people opposed to Amazon—which analysts estimate owns between 68 and 83-percent of the ebook marketshare in the U.S.
With that kind of dominance Barnes & Noble either needs to fight over the scraps with Kobo (which is owned by Rakuten—the massive Japanese online retailer) or differentiate itself. Lackluster design and physical buttons aren’t gone be enough.
I’d love to see Amazon release an Android E-Ink tablet. These tablets are getting more popular in non-American markets where one two to companies don’t have a virtual monopoly on the e-reader space. You can buy one on Amazon or direct from the manufacturer pretty easily. I’m personally enamored with Onyx Boox and its line up of Android E-Ink tablets.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The Leaf 2 starts at $199, has page turning buttons, the Google Play Store, and a user experience that needs improvement.
The problem is the software experience isn’t always very good, and most Android applications aren’t built for E-Ink displays with their glacially slow refresh rates. This leads to a lot of friction that doesn’t exist when you use a traditional tablet or phone.
But Barnes & Noble has a lovely app experience. It could theoretically do away with a lot of that friction. Imagine an e-reader that supported the Barnes & Noble store out of the box but allowed you to also access your Kindle library, or easily check out a book from Libby, or scroll through your bookmarked articles in Pocket too.
Amazon will never build a Kindle with that flexibility—it ones you to stay right in the Amazon ecosystem. Kobo is similar. There’s a reason downloading a library books isn’t as seamless as buying a booking from the Kobo store. But Barnes & Noble is the bookseller that wants to show off its independent spirit. It wants its brick and mortar stores to express their individualism. So why not its e-readers too?
With Starlink, Elon Musk’s Satellite Dominance Is Raising Global Alarms The tech billionaire has become the dominant power in satellite internet technology. The ways he is wielding that influence are raising global alarms.
U.S. Hunts Chinese Malware That Could Disrupt American Military Operations American intelligence officials believe the malware could give China the power to disrupt or slow American deployments or resupply operations, including during a Chinese move against Taiwan.
Etsy sellers say a fraud protection program is destabilizing their businesses
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
D., a carpenter and Etsy seller of several years, recently sold a piece of custom, made-to-order furniture for around $150. The sale itself was business as usual for their shop — but it came with a sense of exasperation. Their earnings would be tied up for weeks while bills, rent, and expenses pile up.
Since late June, Etsy has had D.’s account under restrictive settings, putting a hold on the bulk of money that’s coming in as customers place orders. In D.’s case, 75 percent of earnings from a $150 order, as an example, are being held by Etsy — in what’s known as a “payment reserve” — for anywhere between two weeks and 45 days. After Etsy fees, taxes, and other expenses are pulled from the remaining 25 percent D. has access to, they’re only left with around $13.
“I’m in stress mode right now,” D. says. “I wake up at 4 in the morning, and I’m sitting in bed thinking about this.”
D., who asked that The Verge not identify them for fear of retaliation, is far from alone. A moderator of the r/EtsySellers subreddit says the group has seen a surge in questions about shops being placed on reserve. Chiarra Lohr, secretary-treasurer of the Indie Sellers Guild, which represents artisans, including Etsy sellers, says the organization has heard from dozens of longtime sellers who’ve had their accounts placed on reserve in recent months. And in late May, the chorus of questions about payment reserves grew loud enough that Etsy felt compelled to respond publicly, posting a short message about the system.
According to Etsy’s terms of service, placing accounts on reserve is meant to protect buyers and make sure sellers are able to keep up with the flow of orders — the idea appears to be that it will push sellers to work through their backlog and ship purchases so that their full funds are released to them. Shops might have a reserve placed on their account if they just started selling on the marketplace, got an influx of orders, or if orders are consistently shipped without tracking.
An r/EtsySellers moderator told The Verge that they’ve observed that most reserve cases stemmed from orders being shipped without tracking information. They also pointed to buyers being scammed by new shops that pop up, take an order, and delete their storefront. Reserves mitigate this problem by keeping customers’ money in Etsy’s hands so that if problems arise, it can be returned quickly. If scammers can’t access the funds for a set period of time, it could disincentivize this kind of fraud. (Etsy didn’t respond to specific questions about whether recent reserves are connected to this.)
But sellers like D. say Etsy is applying reserves to longtime shops in good standing, and they’ve been unable to get answers from Etsy about why their money is being held. D. says their shop hasn’t had an influx of orders or refunds, and out of hundreds of orders this year, just one was shipped without tracking. More than $3,000 of D.’s earnings are held in reserve, according to a screenshot they shared — they have access to about 1 percent of that after fees, taxes, and other costs are deducted.
The shift in how they’re paid has been stressful for D. and other sellers who are making custom products that take longer to produce and mail out.
“When I ship those orders, I get [that $3,000]. But because my items are made to order, I need the cash flow,” D. says. “I pay my rent, I pay my groceries, I live on the money from Etsy. And so $3,000 that I would have otherwise had here, just five days before rent is due, I don’t have.”
Many Etsy sellers live “hand to mouth,” as D. puts it — though they might stock premade products in their shop, they often use money from a sale to purchase materials for that order. Lead time for orders from D.’s shop is about two weeks; in the meantime, they’re forced to dip into savings and credit to fund their business and personal expenses.
Less than 2 percent of shops currently have a payment reserve placed on their accounts, and for most of those shops, the amount being held is less than $50, says Chirag Patel, head of payments at Etsy. The company says that, on average, funds on reserve are released to sellers within two weeks.
“In some cases, we will delay a portion of funds from a sale until we can confirm that the order has shipped. This enables us to continue paying sellers in a timely manner while taking the steps necessary to help keep our marketplace safe and protect our customers when there are unexpected issues with their order,” Patel told The Verge via email.
Though reserves are affecting just a fraction of the total sellers on Etsy, those who are subject to the rules can struggle to maintain their business with the delayed cash flow. Another seller, Y., had a payment reserve placed on their account in mid-May without any prior warning. Y., a metalsmith making high-quality custom jewelry, has completed tens of thousands of sales and maintains a high customer rating. (Y. also requested anonymity, fearing retaliation for speaking out.)
At times, Y.’s orders were late to ship out, and they acknowledge that the payment reserve on their account may be due to that. Their focus, though, has been on delivering the best to their customers by making custom prototypes and testing products before sending them out. The unexpected hold on a large portion of their earnings means that their business, ironically, has become less stable than it was.
Y. uses precious metals in their work, like gold, and prices custom items for customers based on the price of gold that day. When their account wasn’t under reserve, the roughly five-day difference between when they purchased materials to when the money was transferred to them was manageable; now, that difference can stretch to two weeks or more. Y. says the delay in payments has forced them to reduce restocks, and they’re unable to keep as much inventory. They’re also declining high-value custom work.
“It’s incredibly frustrating for both me and my customers who desperately want me to restock stuff,” Y. says.
Though the reserve system might block scammers from running off with customers’ money, it’s created a situation that can quickly spiral for legitimate sellers who don’t have funds stockpiled to cover operating costs. The system is more complicated than Etsy, holding 75 percent of the total amount a buyer paid.
Each time a sale is made, a seller’s reserve minimum — that 75 percent portion of the sale — goes up accordingly, creating a running count that a seller must meet. If a seller buys a shipping label, pays for Etsy ads, or otherwise zeroes out the 25 percent portion that’s available to them, the remaining balance is pulled from the 75 percent set aside. Subsequent profit from sales first goes toward replenishing the reserve minimum before money is available to be deposited into a seller’s own account.
“I had to take a personal loan to pay people for the first few weeks, because I had just restocked and it was a complete surprise to suddenly be getting zero dollars from my payment account,” Y. told The Verge via text message.
Y. says they’re not upset by the payment reserve system on the marketplace — the most disruptive part is the way Etsy has designed it. They point to the role Etsy has played in providing job flexibility to them and to other disabled artisans and small sellers that increasingly feels distant. Indie artisans have long complained that it’s becoming harder and harder to support themselves via Etsy sales as the company has relaxed rules around the definition of handmade, increased fees, and pushed sellers to offer services like tracked shipping and around-the-clock customer service.
One way some sellers have been told they can avoid reserves is to meet the Star Seller program requirements, a designation given by Etsy that rewards shops that meet shipping and customer service benchmarks.
But for some Etsy shops, responding to messages within 24 hours and shipping according to Etsy’s requirements isn’t feasible. Lohr of the Indie Sellers Guild says the group heard from a baked goods seller, for instance, who ships orders right before a customer’s event. But customers might place orders months in advance, and Etsy’s processing time only stretches to up to 10 weeks.
“She’s doing what is best for her customers and her business, but in the Etsy system, it’s showing that she has late orders that haven’t been processed,” Lohr says. The Indie Sellers Guild recently started a petition imploring Etsy to work with sellers who are affected by reserves.
D., the custom furniture seller, is desperately trying to hit Star Seller status so that their reserve might be lifted in August. Orders must ship on time, and customer messages must be returned within 24 hours. D. considers themselves lucky — they can operate a smartphone at lightning speed and quickly communicate with customers. But not every person reliant on Etsy is in that position.
“There are people out there who are not digital natives, who are not native English speakers, who are older, who are really making a living on this,” D. says. “I have all those things going for me, and [if] it’s still hard for me, it is just 10 times harder for anybody who can’t navigate these systems successfully.”
The Tile Mate and Apple’s AirTags have dropped to some of their best prices
You can buy four AirTags for $84.99, or about $21 each. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Now we’ve reached the end of July, back-to-school season is officially upon us. If you’re starting to shop for supplies to help kick off the new school year on the right note, we curated a guide to a range of helpful gadgets. We also found a number of good deals this week that’ll help you prepare.
Right now, for example, you can buy some of the best item trackers from Tile and Apple at some pretty notable prices. First off, the latest Tile Mate in black with a pack of lost and found labels for $19.99 ($10 off) from Amazon, which is an all-time low. The platform-agnostic Tile Mate will help you or your children keep track of backpacks, lunch boxes, tote bags, keys, and other belongings up to 250 feet away. That might be 150 feet less than the $35 Tile Pro, but that’s still a good distance, and the Mate is significantly cheaper. And the lost and found labels will come in handy should you or your kid, ironically, also happen to lose the tracker.
Alternatively, if you’d like a pack of item trackers for the whole family, you can buy four of Apple’s AirTags for $84.99 ($15 off) from Amazon and Walmart, which are their second-best price yet. The Bluetooth item trackers can tap into Apple’s vast Find My network. That, combined with its with Apple’s Ultra Wideband (UWB) chip in many of the latest iPhones, allows for exceptionally precise and accurate tracking. Since the AirTags don’t have a loop or keychain clip built-in like the Tile Mate, you might want to pair them with Nomad’s $15 leather loop or this official Apple one on sale for $27.99 ($12 off) to attach it to keys or other things.
Speaking of handy back-to-school supplies, right now Case-Mate’s Fuel USB-C Charger is on sale starting at just $17.70 ($12.30 off) at Amazon. That’s just about $2 shy of its all-time low price and even better than the Prime Day discount. We’re fans of these little chargers here at The Verge thanks to their unique, translucent design and the fact it comes in a variety of fun color options. Looks aside, they’re also very powerful and portable, which each charger capable of delivering 30 watts of power to smartphones, tablets, and even handheld consoles like the Nintendo Switch.
In case you missed it, Samsung announced a number of new products at its Unpacked event earlier this week. One of these is the new Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Z Fold 5 phones, which retailers are already offering some pretty good preorder promotions on.
Right now, for example, you can preorder the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 starting at $999.99 from Amazon with a $150 gift card included. You can also preorder it from Best Buy with a $100 gift card. Samsung’s newest 6.7-inch flip phone folds in half so you can slip it into your pocket easily. It comes with a larger front cover display as well as the snappy Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor.
If you’re in the market for a Bluetooth keyboard, right now the latest Apple Magic Keyboard is available for $69.99 ($30 off) at Woot – its best price yet. The wireless keyboard pairs well with a range of Apple devices, including iPads, Mac desktops, MacBooks, and even iPhones. It also comes with scissor key switches that are comfortable to type on. Plus, you won’t need to buy AAA batteries, either, as it recharges via a Lightning port. Just be mindful that it doesn’t come with Touch ID like the newer model. The Apple accessory also only comes with the 90-day Woot warranty.
A few more deals to kick off the weekend on the right note
The Elgato Stream Deck XL is on sale for $199.99 ($50 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. That’s the best price we’ve seen this year on the gadget, which comes with 32 macro buttons you can program to create shortcuts for various tasks.
PowerA’s MOGA gaming clip for the latest Xbox controllers is on sale for $13.47 ($16 off) at Amazon. The small clip attaches your phone to the latest Xbox controller so you can play while on the go.
If you want a terrific smart lock that works with every smart home platform, the Yale Assure Lock 2 is a good choice that’s on sale for $129.99 ($30 off) at Best Buy in the satin nickel colorway. The sleek Yale Assure Lock 2 offers a wide range of unlocking options and is in fact our favorite smart lock. Read our review.
An Internet Veteran’s Guide to Not Being Scared of Technology Mike Masnick, who founded Techdirt in 1998, writes for an influential audience of lawmakers, C.E.O.s and activists. Somehow, he’s still an optimist about the promise of technology.
Model 3 owners love their Teslas but increasingly not Elon Musk: survey
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images
Bloomberg’s latest survey of thousands of Model 3 owners presents a conflicted view of Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk, suggesting that while owners are happy with their cars they’re souring on Musk himself. The survey, which asked 5,000 Model 3 owners a series of questions about their vehicles and views on Tesla and Elon Musk more generally, follows a similar project from 2019, making it possible to track how sentiment has shifted over time.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the survey is the divergence in opinion on the Model 3 itself, versus the man whose name is so closely intertwined with the Tesla brand. Overwhelmingly, respondents strongly agreed that the car is enjoyable to drive, and said that it’s been more reliable than previous cars they’ve owned. A majority of owners say they don’t intend to ever buy a gas-powered car again, and almost three quarters of those surveyed say they’re considering a Tesla for their next purchase, with the Cybertruck the most popular answer.
Image: Bloomberg
Bloomberg’s chart showing the declining sentiment towards Elon Musk.
And yet, Bloomberg reports that “the steepest change of opinion was the drop in Musk’s approval.” Respondents said they agreed that he should stop tweeting and stay out of politics. People were particularly wary of his purchase of Twitter (now being rebranded to X), which a majority agreed had been a “distraction” from his work at Tesla. When people had decided to sell their Tesla and switch to another brand, “disapproval of Elon Musk” was cited as the most popular reason. Democrats, unsurprisingly, had the most negative views of Musk, while those who’d voted for Trump in 2020 viewed him more positively. Despite the drop in sentiment, respondents still agreed on average that Musk is the right man to be leading Tesla.
Image: Bloomberg
A chart highlighting how sentiment of Musk contrasts with whether customers would buy another Tesla.
A couple of other answers I found interesting:
While most respondents said they were considering a Tesla for their next car, other brands mentioned (in declining order of popularity) included Rivian, Ford and Hyundai. The ID Buzz was the only Volkswagen to appear on the list.
Range was reported to be about 91 percent of the original rated capacity after 100,000 miles, due to battery degradation.
People’s perception of Tesla’s customer service improved if they accessed it online or via Tesla’s app, but declined via phone. Once Tesla actually worked on their car, a majority of owners were satisfied.
The Model 3’s brakes and chassis were rated as its most reliable component, followed by battery and drive-system. Exterior reliability was lowest, with paint chips and scratches being the most common complaints.
Finally there’s the section of the survey on Tesla’s driver-assistance system, which Bloomberg calls “the first major driver assessment of Tesla’s autopilot software.” A majority of customers think the “Full Self-Driving” feature was worth the price they paid for it, and think that Tesla is on the right track with its approach. But opinions were more mixed on whether it’s reliable enough for the average driver, with specific issues cited including problems navigating construction zones, and responding to emergency vehicles (a concern that overlaps with a federal investigation).
The survey paints a nuanced view on the attitudes of Tesla owners who are happy with their cars and the company, but frustrated at the behavior of its CEO. Bloomberg’s full writeup is well worth a read.
Aided by A.I. Language Models, Google’s Robots Are Getting Smart Our sneak peek into Google’s new robotics model, RT-2, which melds artificial intelligence technology with robots.
Sony’s first PS5 sale brings steep price drops to UK, Germany, India, and beyond
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Sony is running a PS5 sale in the UK, India, Ireland, and Germany where the price of a standard console is dropping by around 16 percent. In the UK the PS5 can now be found for £399.99, below its regular £479.99 price and even far below the £449.99 price at launch, before a PS5 price hike outside the US last year.
The price drop promotions come just as Sony has announced it has sold 40 million PS5s since the console’s launch in 2020. PS5 shipments have increased this year, after Sony revealed it has tripled the number of consoles it shipped from January to March at 6.3 million units compared to 2 million in the same period last year.
A temporary PS5 price drop is also in place just before Sony is expected to announce a PS5 Slim model. Insider Gaming reported last year that Sony was preparing for a PS5 with a detachable disc drive for September 2023.
Microsoft referenced the rumors in the FTC v. Microsoft hearing recently, predicting that the PS5 Slim could be priced at $399.99. If such pricing is accurate the PS5 Slim would maintain the same price point as the Digital Edition of the PS5, but potentially offer consumers the choice to add a disc drive at a later date.
AMD’s Ryzen 9 7945HX3D could be its slam-dunk gaming laptop chip
AMD and Asus have announced the ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D, a beefy 17-inch gaming laptop with an RGB lightstrip on the bottom. Which, sure, whatever. The exciting news is what’s inside this device. This Strix is powered by AMD’s 7945HX3D mobile laptop, which could, if the stars align, provide gaming performance that we haven’t seen in AMD’s current laptop landscape and fulfill last year’s “extreme gaming laptop” promise.
The chip has 16 cores and 32 threads with boost clock up to 5.4GHz, with “55W+” TDP — those things alone put it at the top of AMD’s laptop processor stack. But it’s also the first mobile processor to feature AMD’s 3D V-Cache (144MB of it, to be specific), which allows AMD to place additional layers of cache directly onto the CPU.
This technology first appeared on AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D desktop chip, which outclassed Intel’s 12th Gen Core i9-12900K for PC gaming — but this laptop chip actually has more cache than any of AMD’s desktop X3D chips yet.
AMD claims that the 7945HX3D will be the “world’s fastest mobile gaming processor”, and will be more than 15 percent faster than the average-Joe 7945HX. More specifically, the company states that the 3D V-Cache will increase Shadow of the Tomb Raider performance by 11 percent at 70W TDP and 23 percent at 40W TDP.
But all of those gaming tests were performed at 1080p resolution, where CPU gains are more pronounced — don’t expect the same advantage on a 1440p or 4K panel.
Asus’s new laptop does look like it will come in a 1080p version, though, as AMD’s presentation footnotes say its benchmarks were performed on an Asus Strix Scar 17 at “1080p native” alongside Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics, with 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB SSD. They were also run at turbo mode, not that you expected long battery life from such a machine.
X3D chips form the basis of AMD’s current domination in the desktop gaming scene. They’ve closed the major gap that we saw between AMD’s and Intel’s top CPUs last year, providing massive gaming performance boosts at lower wattages.
The big question is whether the mobile iteration of this chip will have the same impact on the gaming laptop space. Intel is currently losing (hard) to AMD in the battery life competition, but it’s also much more heavily represented among high-end gaming laptops.
If AMD has a chip here that can outcompete Intel on both raw performance and efficiency, that could be a big benefit to AMD (and, hopefully, gamers) in the premium laptop space. “In an era where chip makers don’t always focus on efficiency, AMD’s 7950X3D shines through as an exception to the rule,” Verge editor Tom Warren wrote in his review of the recent 7950X3D desktop chip, and that’s even more important in the laptop space than it is for desktop parts.
The Strix Scar 17 X3D will be available on August 22nd. We’ll bring you more details on the laptop as we get them.
Verizon and AT&T are charging a new fee to customers on older unlimited plans
Verizon would very much like you to switch to its new Unlimited Welcome plan. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The carriers are at it again: Verizon and AT&T are both notifying customers on older unlimited plans to expect a new fee on their bill soon. Customers on Verizon’s 5G Start and AT&T’s Unlimited Elite plans are affected, and the fees go into effect in August. It’s a classic move from the “wireless carrier shenanigans” playbook designed to push customers to newer, more profitable plans.
Verizon customers on Reddit and Twitter report that the company has just sent notice of a new monthly “Plan Rate Adjustment” charge of $3 per line. Older plans are affected, including 5G Start, which Verizon introduced as Start Unlimited four years ago and costs $70 per month for a single line. Verizon would very much like customers on that legacy plan to switch to its new Unlimited Welcome, which starts at $60 per month but doesn’t include mobile hotspot data like Start Unlimited — you’ll need to add that on for an extra $10 per month.
As spotted by CNET, AT&T’s rate adjustment hits customers on the older Unlimited Elite plan and will cost them an extra $2.50 per month. The legacy plan was previously AT&T’s top-tier unlimited plan and costs $85 per month for one line of service. It’s all detailed in a support page on AT&T’s website, which says that the fee is being applied so the company can “continue to deliver the great wireless service you expect.”
So that, my friends, is how they get you: they charge an extra fee to stay on your old plan without actually raising the rate of the old plan. It’s a shame we still don’t have that fourth wireless carrier to switch to — it would really come in handy right now.
Intel CEO: ‘We’re going to build AI into every platform we build’
Image: Intel
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger was very bullish on AI during the company’s Q2 2023 earnings call — telling investors that Intel plans to “build AI into every product that we build.”
Later this year, Intel will ship Meteor Lake, its first consumer chip with a built-in neural processor for machine learning tasks. (AMD recently did the same, following Apple and Qualcomm.)
But while Intel previously suggested to us that only its premium new Ultra chips might have those AI coprocessors, it sounds like Gelsinger expects AI will eventually be in everything Intel sells.
Gelsinger often likes to talk up the “four superpowers” or “five superpowers” of technology companies, which originally included both AI and cloud, but today, he’s suggesting that AI and cloud don’t necessarily go hand in hand.
Gelsinger:
Today, you’re starting to see that people are going to the cloud and goofing around with ChatGPT writing a research paper and, you know, that’s like super cool, right? And kids are of course simplifying their homework assignments that way, but you’re not going to do that for every client — because becoming AI enabled, it must be done on the client for that to occur, right? You can’t go to the cloud. You can’t round trip to the cloud.
All of the new effects: real-time language translation in your zoom calls, real-time transcription, automation inferencing, relevance portraying, generated content and gaming environments, real-time creator environments through Adobe and others that are doing those as part of the client, new productivity tools — being able to do local legal brief generations on a clients, one after the other, right? Across every aspect of consumer, developer and enterprise efficiency use cases, we see that there’s going to be a raft of AI enablement and those will be client-centered. Those will also be at the edge.
You can’t round trip to the cloud. You don’t have the latency, the bandwidth, or the cost structure to round trip, say, inferencing at a local convenience store to the cloud. It will all happen at the edge and at the client.
“AI is going to be in every hearing aid in the future, including mine,” he said at a different point in the call. “Whether it’s a client, whether it’s an edge platform for retail and manufacturing and industrial use cases, whether it’s an enterprise data center, they’re not going to stand up a dedicated 10-megawatt farm.”
On the one hand, of course Intel’s CEO would say this. It’s Nvidia, not Intel, which makes the kind of chips that power the AI cloud. Nvidia’s the one that rocketed to a $1 trillion market cap because it sold the right kind of shovels for the AI gold rush. Intel needs to find its own way in.
But on the other hand, it’s true that not everyone wants everything in the cloud — including cloud provider Microsoft, which still makes a substantial chunk of its money selling licenses for Windows PCs.
The next version of Windows is the one to watch. A leak has already suggested that Intel’s Meteor Lake — and its built-in neural engine — is pointed at Windows 12.
What Happened When 15 of Twitter’s Top Celebrities Joined Threads We examined the daily activity of Ellen DeGeneres, Wiz Khalifa, Selena Gomez and others among Twitter’s most-followed to deduce if Threads has staying power.
Researchers Poke Holes in Safety Controls of ChatGPT and Other Chatbots A new report indicates that the guardrails for widely used chatbots can be thwarted, leading to an increasingly unpredictable environment for the technology.
During Meta’s second quarter earnings call with investors on Wednesday, Zuckerberg was asked multiple times about Threads and his expectations for its long-term success. He said it’s a “weird anomaly in the tech industry that there hasn’t been an app like this for text-based convos that has reached 1 billion people,” echoing previous comments he has made both on Threads itself and during a recent interview with the podcaster Lex Fridman.
Threads reached 100 million signups faster than any consumer software product in history, but it’s nowhere near reaching the 1-billion-user club yet. Its engagement is also estimated to have slowed significantly since that initial rush of signups, though Zuckerberg said last week that “tens of millions” of people were still using the app daily.
According to Zuckerberg, the main focus for Threads, beyond adding key missing features, is improving the app’s retention with current users. “I’m highly confident we’re going to be able to pour enough gasoline on this to help it grow” after that work is done, he said. Meta has yet to promote Threads in Instagram or Facebook or spend on marketing it. (Elon Musk has told his employees that he wants his X super-app idea to eventually hit 1 billion users, too, though he has very different ideas for getting there.)
“We’ve tried a bunch of standalone experiences over time, and in general, we haven’t had a lot of success with standalone apps,” Zuckerberg told investors. “Part of me wonders if this is just a classic venture capital portfolio question, where you try a bunch of things and a bunch of them don’t work, and once in a while, one hits... it could be that this is such an idiocratic case because of all the factors happening around Twitter, or X as it’s called now.”
Meta’s business has rebounded significantly this year, and for the second quarter, it reported better-than-expected earnings that sent its stock price higher. The company’s total revenue was $32 billion, with a net income of $7.78 billion. Its Reality Labs division, meanwhile, reported a net loss of $3.7 billion. Management warned investors to expect those losses to “meaningfully” increase due to “ongoing product development efforts” in augmented and virtual reality, like the release of the Quest 3 headset later this year.
Even with those staggering losses at Reality Labs, Meta doesn’t feel pressure to monetize Threads in the near term. Its established social networks — Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp — have never been bigger. Even Facebook has surpassed 3 billion monthly users and is growing again in the US and Canada, the company announced on Wednesday.
While Twitter is scrambling to recover the ad revenue it has lost since Musk took over, Zuckerberg said on the earnings call that Threads wouldn’t introduce ads until it reaches “hundreds of millions” of users. “I think we’re really just focused on taking this opportunity, which is an awesome one that we didn’t expect at this scale,” he said. “It’s going to be a long road ahead.”
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Tesla under investigation in California over Autopilot safety issues and false advertising
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Tesla is facing a new investigation with the California attorney general’s office looking into safety issues with the company’s Autopilot feature as well as its marketing practices, CNBCreported on Wednesday.
The outlet was tipped off to the investigation by Tesla owner Greg Wester, who California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office called to ask about his August 2022 Federal Trade Commission complaint about his Tesla’s “phantom braking” problem and what he believed to be misleading claims around the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s claims about his cars’ fully driverless capabilities date back to 2016 when he said all new Tesla EVs would have the necessary hardware for it. In fact, the company has dragged its feet on it for so long that it’s now giving drivers a “one-time” transfer of their purchased upgrade to their next EV from the company.
Tesla is having a moment, and I’m not talking about it having finally produced a Cybertruck in its Texas plant or its charging standard effectively winning the EV charging standard war in the US. It’s also in a heap of legal and regulatory battles over safety issues with its cars.
The company is being sued in California by owners complaining about “phantom braking” — alleging Tesla’s cars will abruptly brake while in Autopilot mode for seemingly no reason at all. In China, thousands of the company’s cars are being recalled for the same reason. And in the US, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has begun its own investigation of the car’s strange alleged braking behaviors.
That’s not all. The Department of Justice is looking into Tesla’s potential criminal liability for at least some of the crashes, both fatal and not, related to its Autopilot issue — an issue that could be more widespread than was understood previously.
Here’s how the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 compares to the Google Pixel Fold
Admit it: this picture could show a Galaxy Z Fold 4, and we probably wouldn’t be able to tell. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
It just wouldn’t be hot foldable summer without a new ultra-flagship entry from Samsung. This year, Samsung announced its new Galaxy Z Fold 5 at its Unpacked event, and the $1,799.99 phone looks a whole lot like previous Z Folds. In fact, it’s so similar to last year’s Z Fold 4 that the biggest change for the Fold 5 may be that it’s launching with a direct competitor here in the US in the form of the Google Pixel Fold.
It was only around one month ago that Google launched its debut folding phone, and while it’s proven a valiant first attempt with good cameras and a comfier outer screen, it still lacks a bit in the software optimization department. On the other hand, Samsung has been refining its Galaxy Fold line since it took that massive first step into these unknown, foldable waters (and subsequently face-planted due to massive defects of its original model).
The Galaxy Z Folds have looked a bit same-y for a couple of years now, and the Z Fold 5 looks a whole lot like the Z Fold 4 until you close it — as its new hinge design now allows it to close flat (a feat Google managed to accomplish on its first try). But with so many of the Fold 5’s specs and features mostly unchanged from its 2022 predecessor, let’s dive into all the differences (and many similarities) on paper between the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and the Google Pixel Fold.
Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
The Z Fold 5’s new crowning achievement, closing flatter with a smaller air gap, is something Google already achieved on its first go-round.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 vs. Google Pixel Fold: it feels like we’ve been here before
Just like comparing the Z Fold 4 and the Pixel Fold, the biggest difference between the Pixel Fold and the new Z Fold 5 is that Samsung’s foldable has a tall-and-skinny 6.2-inch screen on the outside with a portrait-orientated 7.6-inch display on the inside that opens like a book. That inner screen is the same size and aspect ratio as the Pixel Fold’s inner screen, but the Pixel is essentially rotated 90 degrees in a landscape orientation when it’s unfolded (a 6:5 aspect ratio vs. the Z Fold’s 5:6). The Galaxy is most inclined for productivity stuff and multitasking app usage when you open it, while the Pixel is more apt for relaxing to some tablet-like content consumption. That roomier experience is most on display with the Pixel Fold’s outer screen, which is a smaller 5.8 inches but much more usable as a standard slab phone on its own.
The things you can do on those different aspect ratios are also a major differentiator between the Pixel Fold and the Z Fold 5. We’ll have to see how the Z Fold 5 handles in our full review — which is, of course, in the works — but it’s not hard to imagine that it’ll be quite similar to the Z Fold 4’s software experience. Our own Dan Seifert went into great detail about what using that software is like and how much ground Google needs to cover to catch up.
Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
Do you like a narrow, skinny lad like the Z Fold 5?
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Or an absolute unit like the Pixel Fold?
As for the more quantifiable stuff between the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and the Google Pixel Fold? There are many similarities, down to the amount of RAM, the IPX8 resistance rating, the fingerprint scanner location (it’s in their respective power buttons), the 120Hz screen refresh rates, and even the $1,799.99 price. The Pixel Fold still holds the title for being the heavier foldable, especially as the Z Fold 5 is slightly lighter and smaller than last year’s (by a minuscule amount), but its larger battery proved more unreliable than last year’s Z Fold.
We can’t tell everything from specs alone, but they sure are fun to dissect and compare. Why don’t you take a look and tell us what you think? Is this the year you jump on the foldable train, or are you still more than happy with many of us in plain old Slabsville?
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 series is all about the bezels
Samsung brought the rotating bezel back for the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic (right), while the bezels on the regular Watch 6 are 30 percent thinner.
The Classic’s rotating bezel is back — and the display bezels are a lot thinner all around. Oh, and here comes Wear OS 4.
Last year, before the Galaxy Watch 5 came out, I wrote that Samsung getting rid of the physical rotating bezel would be a stupid, stupid, stupid idea. I felt justified after reviewing both the Watch 5 and Watch 5 Pro, with their silly nonrotating bezels. And now that Samsung’s unveiled the $299.99 Galaxy Watch 6 and the $399.99 Watch 6 Classic at Unpacked, I’ve never felt more vindicated. The rotating bezel is back, baby.
If you’re new to Samsung smartwatches, here’s the bezel breakdown. Until 2019, all Samsung smartwatches had rotating bezels. Starting with the Galaxy Watch Active 2, Samsung tended to stick touch bezels on its entry-level smartwatches (e.g., the Galaxy Watch Active 2 and Galaxy Watch 4) and reserved the rotating bezel for its premium or flagship models (e.g., the Galaxy Watch 3, Watch 4 Classic, etc.). At least, that was the case until last year. Instead of a Watch 5 Classic, we got the more rugged Watch 5 Pro, sans rotating bezel. I get why. The rotating bezel isn’t quite as durable for outdoorsy activities, but it was still a major bummer.
I got my hands on the Galaxy Watch 6 and Watch 6 Classic last week in New York City, and playing with the Classic again reminded me why the physical rotating bezel was so great in the first place. While I liked that the touch bezel on the Galaxy Watch Active 2 made the watch sleeker, I’ve found over the years that it’s not quite as useful. Scrolling speed on touch bezels can be finicky, and generally, you have to swipe your finger around the entire border. Not so with the rotating bezel. You can be much more precise when navigating through screens and widgets, and you don’t have to move your hand much when you’re scrolling a bunch. Plus, like a physical button, it’s immune to sweaty fingers and gloves. The mechanical click is also much more satisfying than the touch bezel’s haptics.
In a press briefing, I asked Samsung what drove the decision to bring back the rotating bezel with the Watch 6 Classic. Turns out, it was due to popular demand. That said, the Classic’s return doesn’t necessarily mean the Pro is going away. It’s still part of the lineup, but it’s just not getting an update this year. (Samsung demurred when I asked whether it plans to update it down the line.)
The 47mm Galaxy Watch 6 Classic (right) isn’t thaaaaat much bigger than the Galaxy Watch 6.
Oh, rotating bezel, how I missed you. Less fond of this frog.
The rotating bezel isn’t the only bezel-related update. The border around the OLED display of both the Watch 6 and Classic is also slimmer. It’s 30 percent thinner on the regular Galaxy Watch 6 compared to its predecessor and 15 percent thinner on the Classic. The result is a 20 percent overall increase in screen real estate for both watches.
The difference is easier to spot if you happen to have an older model on hand for comparison (which Samsung did, naturally). And of the two models, it’s much more noticeable on the Classic because the visible part of the screen goes all the way to the edge of the rotating bezel. We’ll have to see how Samsung makes use of the extra space since, so far, the only thing it’s really shown off is the new Funny Face watchface. It’s debatable how funny the faces are — they’re more creepy-cute, in my opinion, and I’m pretty sure a handful of them will haunt my dreams.
Samsung released a new Funny Face watchface to make use of the thinner bezels and increased screen real estate. It’s... creepy-cute.
Bigger batteries, but not much else
Aside from that, Samsung isn’t reinventing the wheel here. The regular Watch 6 still comes in 40mm and 44mm sizes, while the Classic is only slightly larger at 43mm and 47mm. Material-wise, the Watch 6 comes in an aluminum case, while the Classic is stainless steel. Both have sapphire crystal displays.
The 40mm and 44mm Galaxy Watch 6 are lightweight at 28.7g and 33.3g, respectively. You can really feel the added weight of the stainless steel when you pick up the 43mm Classic, which weighs 52g. As you’d expect, the 47mm is the heaviest of the bunch at 59g, and you can definitely feel the difference between it and the 43mm. There’s no denying the 43mm better suits my tiny wrists, but the larger Classic isn’t egregiously bad. It wears small-ish for its size; something like the 47mm Garmin Epix 2 looks a lot chunkier on my wrist. Side by side, it’s quite similar to the 49mm Apple Watch Ultra.
From left to right: the 40mm Samsung Galaxy Watch 6; the 43mm Galaxy Watch 6 Classic; the 44mm Galaxy Watch 6; and the 47mm Galaxy Watch 6 Classic.
Compared to last year, the watches also have bigger batteries — not by a whole lot, but bigger. The smaller versions of both watches feature 300mAh batteries (up from 284mAh), while the larger ones have 425mAh batteries (up from 410mAh). It’s a more impressive update for the Classic. The 42mm Watch 4 Classic had a 247mAh battery, while the larger 46mm had a 361mAh battery. Samsung also says the devices ought to have lower battery consumption, while fast charge has been improved so you can get eight hours of battery in eight minutes.
I won’t know whether this will make a difference until I can test the watches longer term. That said, Samsung seems to be tempering expectations with a 30-hour estimate for all four watches with the always-on display enabled and 40 hours with it off. That seems reasonable based on last year’s models, and I appreciate that Samsung doesn’t seem to be overpromising on battery life improvements like it has in previous years.
Besides the batteries, the other notable hardware update is that the Galaxy Watch 6 series uses a new 1.4GHz Exynos W930 chip, with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Otherwise, we’re running off the same sensors, including the 3-in-1 biosensor (heart rate, EKG, bioelectric impedance analysis), skin temperature sensor, and GPS. Again, it’s hard to say what sort of impact the new processor will have. Everything felt fast and zippy with the demo watches I got to see, but demos don’t reflect real-life usage.
The new fabric strap is heavily reminiscent of Apple’s nylon Sport Loop. That’s a good thing if you like breathable, fast-drying straps.
The fabric strap! It features a one-click mechanism and is backward-compatible with older Galaxy Watches.
Some more minor updates: Samsung is switching over to a one-click strap mechanism and introducing a fabric strap. It’s pretty straightforward. You press a button, and boop, the strap comes off or on. The button is a little smaller than I’d like just because my nails are weak from one too many manicures. But even with my flimsy nails, it’s still much easier than the standard pin strap. The good news is the one-click straps are backward-compatible with older Galaxy Watches, and older straps you might have will also work with the Galaxy Watch 6 lineup. The fabric strap itself is nearly identical to Apple’s nylon Sport Loop — and seeing as I recommend the Sport Loop to Apple Watch buyers, I think that’s swell.
Wear OS 4 and software updates
Most of the “big” changes on the Galaxy Watch 6 series will come from software updates. Namely, these will be the first watches to launch with Google’s Wear OS 4 platform and Samsung’s One UI 5 Watch skin. Wear OS 4 is supposed to bring better battery life, cloud backups, and a new watchface format. As for One UI 5 Watch, Samsung announced what to expect a while back. The main updates include improved emergency SOS calling, personalized heart rate zones, and the ability to view more sleep tracking details from the wrist. There’ll also be an updated Sleep Mode that dims the display and utilizes invisible infrared sensors instead of green LED light for heart rate. The Galaxy Watch 6 series also gets Samsung’s new passive irregular heart rhythm alerts, which monitor for signs of atrial fibrillation in the background.
One UI 5 Watch will bring more detailed sleep tracking metrics to the wrist. Unfortunately, this isn’t what it’ll actually look like since I only saw demo units with no historical sleep data.
I didn’t actually get to try most of these updates. I did, however, get to demo the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic as a camera remote with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5. Once you open the camera controller app on your watch, it automatically launches the camera app on the foldable it’s paired to. And yes, this feature is exclusive to Samsung’s foldable phones — which is a bummer because it’s a genuinely handy feature for selfies and group photos. Zooming in and out with the rotating bezel? Intuitive, practical, and helps keep your hands free. There’ll be other tie-ins with Samsung’s ecosystem as well, like finding items via SmartThings Find via the wrist. Samsung Pay is also getting the upgrade to Samsung Wallet. It’s the same thing, except Wallet will also eventually contain IDs, boarding passes, and car keys.
The only thing I actively disliked is that Samsung upped the price from $279.99 to $299.99 for the Galaxy Watch 6 and from $349.99 to $399.99 for the Classic. Getting the larger sizes or LTE capability will bump up the prices further. To be fair, this is more in line with the competition. The Google Pixel Watch, for example, is $349.99. The Apple Watch SE costs $249, while the regular Series 8 starts at $399.99. Inflation is inflation, but you never like to see things get more expensive, especially when a product, for the most part, doesn’t feel that different from the old one.
It’s funny, but I walked away from the hands-on most excited about an old feature coming back. Despite the new software, bigger displays, and every other tiny update Samsung crammed into the Galaxy Watch 6 series, these feel like watches I’ve worn before. That’s not always a bad thing. (It’s called the Classic for a reason.) It’s simply where we’re at with wearables at the moment. The ambitious stuff is in the pipeline, but for now, refinement is the name of the game.
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