Can’t Hear the Dialogue in Your Streaming Show? You’re Not Alone.

Can’t Hear the Dialogue in Your Streaming Show? You’re Not Alone. Many of us stream shows and movies with the subtitles on all the time — and not because it’s cool.

Leaked images reveal Lenovo’s Steam Deck competitor with a hint of the Switch

Leaked images reveal Lenovo’s Steam Deck competitor with a hint of the Switch

Image: Windows Report

Valve’s Steam Deck might be getting more competition. Last month, Windows Central reported that Lenovo is working on a handheld gaming PC that runs Windows called the Legion Go, and on Wednesday, Windows Report published what appear to be the first images of the upcoming device.

Based on the images, Lenovo’s take on a PC gaming handheld looks a lot like devices such as the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally, but it also has a lot in common with the Nintendo Switch. According to Windows Report, the Legion Go has an eight-inch screen, images show two Joy-Con-like controllers that can be removed, and it even appears to have a wide Switch OLED-like kickstand that you can pop out for tabletop gaming.

Image: Windows Report

The Legion Go’s controllers appear to be a blend of the Switch’s flat but removable Joy-Cons and the Steam Deck’s contoured but attached grips. There looks to be one touch pad on the right controller — by comparison, the Steam Deck has touch pads on both sides — but the back of that right controller also apparently has a wheel. And since the controllers can be removed, Windows Report speculates that the screen is a touchscreen.

Perhaps the most important takeaway from these apparent images of the device (there are more, and you can see them all at Windows Report) is that Lenovo isn’t shying away from making the Legion Go thick. Asus steered away from thickness and heft with the ROG Ally, which wound up with middling battery life, but we’re beginning to see portables like the upcoming Ayaneo Kun pointed towards beefier batteries.

Windows Report says Legion Go will run Windows 11, meaning you should be able to play any Windows games that support the device’s specs. Windows Central previously reported it would use AMD Phoenix processors, which are also found in the ROG Ally and other recent and upcoming Windows handhelds.

Lenovo didn’t immediately have a comment.

Lenovo has dabbled with handheld gaming devices in the past, showing the “LaVie Mini” concept in partnership with NEC at CES 2021 and building an unreleased Android-based device called the Legion Play. If it’s real, the Legion Go seems like a much more serious effort — and I hope it’s real, because I want to see how it stacks up to the likes of the Steam Deck.

The A.I. Industry’s Desperate Hunt for GPUs Amid a Chip Shortage

The A.I. Industry’s Desperate Hunt for GPUs Amid a Chip Shortage To power artificial-intelligence products, start-ups and investors are taking extraordinary measures to obtain critical chips known as graphics processing units, or GPUs.

Google Tests an A.I. Assistant That Offers Life Advice

Google Tests an A.I. Assistant That Offers Life Advice The tech giant is evaluating tools that would use artificial intelligence to perform tasks that some of its researchers have said should be avoided.

Apple moved the end call button again in iOS 17

Apple moved the end call button again in iOS 17

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

Apple has moved end call button once again with the latest iOS 17 developer beta. Now, it lives in the lower middle of the call screen instead of on the lower right. It’s a little change, but it might mean that iOS 17’s new call controls won’t feel quite as different once Apple officially rolls out the new software sometime this fall.

The end call button has been in a new place since the first iOS 17 beta that was released in June, but it got some attention recently after some publications reported on the right-aligned. If the comments in our article on the change from last week are any indication, many didn’t like the button’s new position, and the negative reaction may have contributed to Apple’s decision to put the end call button back in the center.

Check out this gallery to get a sense of the button’s progression from iOS 16 to an older iOS 17 beta to now.

Apple may have shifted the call screen controls lower down the screen to make room for iOS 17’s new Contact Posters that are designed to feature the faces of the people you’re talking to. The lower call controls arguably make them easier to use on larger phone screens, too.

There aren’t many other changes in the newest iOS 17 beta, but if you want to see what’s different, check out this article from MacRumors.

Amazon Music Unlimited is getting more expensive for Prime subscribers

Amazon Music Unlimited is getting more expensive for Prime subscribers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon Music Unlimited is getting another price hike, and this one affects people who pay for the music service and Amazon’s Prime subscription.

The cost of Amazon Music Unlimited’s individual plan for Prime members will go up from $8.99 to $9.99 per month, according to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. The price of the family plan for Prime members is going up, too, increasing from $15.99 to $16.99 per month.

The costs of the annual plans for individuals and families that are Prime subscribers are increasing as well, each by $10, THR says. That means the annual individual plan will now cost $99 per year, while the family plan will cost $169 per year.

Amazon spokesperson Rebecca Silverstein confirmed the changes to The Verge. Silverstein also said that new customers will begin seeing the new price “plus applicable taxes” on Tuesday and that existing customers will see the new price on their first bill “on or after” September 19th. (I’m still seeing the old $8.99 price on this Amazon Music Unlimited page, but I suspect that will roll over sometime soon.)

The company increased the cost of Amazon Music Unlimited for people who don’t subscribe to Prime earlier this year. Many music services have gotten higher prices over the past several months, including Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Premium, and Tidal.

Amazon last raised the annual price of Amazon Prime in February 2022.

Update August 15th, 7:28PM ET: Added context from Amazon.

It’s official, people aren’t watching TV as much as they used to

It’s official, people aren’t watching TV as much as they used to

Some kids watching TV, back when that was a thing kids regularly did. | Photo by Michel BARET/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

It finally happened, at least according to a new metric Nielsen began using two years ago: linear TV now accounts for less than 50 percent of all TV usage. This probably isn’t a surprise unless you're reading this on the couch while watching the NBC Nightly News. Between YouTube, TikTok, and streaming channels, people have a lot of ways to occupy their video-viewing time.

Approximately two years ago, Nielsen started using a new metric for measuring how people spend their TV-watching time. It built in buckets for broadcast TV, cable TV, streaming, and a catchall called “Other” that accounted for people using gaming consoles and media players. The latest report shows broadcast and cable TV each dropping about one percent from June 2023 to July 2023. Streaming and the “Other” category each gained that one percent in the same time period.

But if you compare things to a year ago, the decline is much more pronounced. The analytics firm showed that cable usage had dropped by 12.5 percent since this time last year, accounting for less than a third of viewers’ time, while broadcast TV slid to just one-fifth of total watch time in American homes.

At the same time, Nielsen says streaming had a record-breaking month led by YouTube and Netflix, which together accounted for almost as much viewer time spent as broadcast alone. Nielsen’s “Other” category has been up consistently for the last three months, although it was actually down a percentage point from the same time last year.

This trend is supported by the latest numbers from Leichtman Research, which dropped a report estimating cable providers lost an estimated 1.73 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2023. “We think the metrics for linear TV are all bad,” Macquarie media analyst Tim Nolle noted in an August 14 investor report The Hollywood Reporter acquired.

And they are! Some execs like Netflix’s Reed Hastings have even been loudly and proudly banging a drum heralding the death of linear TV for years now. Just last year, he even declared 2032 as the year linear TV would officially die. Meanwhile, Bob Iger over at Disney just recently announced his desire to find minority stakeholders for ESPN and said its linear cable channels “may not be core to Disney,” citing declining cable subscription numbers.

There’s still a chance for traditional TV. Free ad-supported TV services like Tubi and The Roku Channel are increasing in popularity, and if you talk to anyone in the broadcast TV business, they’ll tell you ATSC 3.0 could save TV too. But traditional TV isn’t just competing with Disney Plus and Max; it's competing with YouTube and TikTok, and other video providers that can rely on creators to churn out content faster and more cheaply than NBC or CBS. So Nielsen’s news of declining viewership isn’t a surprise as much as it was always a somewhat depressing inevitability.

Superconductor Scientist Faces Investigation as a Paper Is Retracted

Superconductor Scientist Faces Investigation as a Paper Is Retracted The University of Rochester will examine the work of Ranga Dias, who was an author of a materials science paper unrelated to his superconductor research that was retracted on Tuesday.

Aqara’s new Zigbee light strip supports HomeKit Adaptive Lighting and Matter

Aqara’s new Zigbee light strip supports HomeKit Adaptive Lighting and Matter

The Aqara LED Strip T1 is available now. | Image: Aqara

Aqara has released a new Zigbee RGB smart light strip called the LED Strip T1. It costs $49.99, requires an Aqara hub, and is compatible with Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and IFTTT. When paired with certain hubs, including the Aqara Hub M2, the light strip is also compatible with the Matter smart home protocol.

The T1 is one of the very few light strips that support Apple’s Adaptive Lighting feature — and the only one that supports both Adaptive Lighting and Matter. It doesn’t support Adaptive Lighting through Matter, unfortunately; nothing does. Still, it’s nice to see new, Matter-compliant lighting come to market using the solid Zigbee standard. (Whatever happened to that Hue-to-Matter bridge, I wonder?)

The 6.6ft (2m)-long light strip’s Adaptive Lighting support means you can set it to automatically tune its colors throughout the day to be warmer or cooler depending on the time. The only other light strips that support Apple’s circadian lighting feature at the moment come from Hue and Eve (also the old Nanoleaf Essentials strip, which doesn’t, er, Matter).

Image: Aqara

The Aqara LED Strip T1.

As I said though, connecting the Aqara Strip T1 to Apple Home using the Matter protocol instead of the old-fashioned way means you’ll lose Adaptive Lighting, since the still-nascent “universal” smart home standard doesn’t currently support it. The nice thing is that — unlike Nanoleaf’s Matter Essentials strip, which only supports Apple Home through Matter and thus doesn’t support Adaptive Lighting at all — Aqara’s Apple HomeKit certification means you don’t have to give that up.

The T1 is an RGBIC strip, meaning it can show multiple colors simultaneously (as opposed to older-style light strips that can only show one color at a time). Also, Aqara says each of its ten segments is addressable, so you can control them individually when changing colors, though that doesn’t apply to the tunable white light portion of the LEDs, which applies to the entire strip at once.

Finally, like other colorful smart bulbs and light strips from companies like Govee, you can set up custom effects within the Aqara app if you want to show off fun snaking gradients or flashing colors — it can even sync to music using a built-in microphone.

The trimmable, IP44-rated Aqara T1 LED Strip costs $49.99, and a 1-meter extension kit costs $14.99. It’s available at Amazon in the US, Canada, and several European countries and at other retailers listed on its “where to buy” page.

Prosecutors Detail Evidence Against Sam Bankman-Fried

Prosecutors Detail Evidence Against Sam Bankman-Fried In a filing, prosecutors laid out the evidence they plan to use to convict the founder of the failed crypto exchange FTX, who faces trial in October.

Substack now lets you follow writers before subscribing to them

Substack now lets you follow writers before subscribing to them

Illustration by The Verge

Substack now lets you follow writers, offering a way for you to keep tabs on what a writer is doing without having to subscribe to their newsletter. When you follow a writer, “you can stay up to date with what they’re reading, liking, publishing, and subscribing to — through the Notes feed and on their profiles,” Substack says in a blog post.

Substack is perhaps best known as a newsletter platform where writers can make money from getting people to sign up for paid subscriptions. But the platform has also been dabbling with more traditional social networking features such as its tweet-like Notes, and a follow button feels like Substack stepping even more toes into the social networking waters.

The company stresses that follows, which are free, are intended to aid writers as they build out subscription networks. “Following helps writers grow their audience via the Substack network, which is already home to millions of the world’s most valuable readers,” Substack argues. “We built this feature to help maximize — and not replace — subscriptions, which will always be the most important type of relationship on Substack.”

But now, Substack writers may have the added burden of thinking about ways to convert followers and non-followers into subscribers. (Substack is promising that in the future, it will “make ‘upsells’ to subscriptions easier” through notifying followers about “trending posts and other milestones.”)

Last week, Substack’s co-founders said that they want to make the platform a better place for readers, not just writers. The company has already introduced a handful of features to encourage reading things directly on the platform, including mobile apps and the ability to bring RSS feeds to your Substack feed.

For people looking for a new place to read text and post some microblogs given the general degradation of X / Twitter, the follow button might be a useful feature to see what writers are up to without clogging up your email inbox with newsletters.

Want a $4,000 smart door? The Home Depot has you covered

Want a $4,000 smart door? The Home Depot has you covered

The first smart door has landed at The Home Depot, and if you’re good with dropping at least $4,000 on your front door, then you can order one today. That price doesn’t include installation, though, and no matter how handy you are, this one needs the pros — including an electrician to wire it up.

First showcased at CES 2022, the Masonite M-PWR Smart Door is the first residential door to come with a Yale smart door lock and Ring video doorbell built in, but the big selling point is they are all powered by your home’s electrics, so there’s no need to worry about recharging or replacing batteries — a common issue with most smart locks and some video doorbells.

Image: Masonite

Integrated LED smart lighting on the door can work on motion or be set to turn on from dusk to dawn.

The fiberglass doors come in a few different styles and colors; pricing starts at $4,000 and goes north of $7,000. Other smart features include motion-activated lighting and a door state sensor so you can see if the door is open or closed using an app. There’s also an emergency backup battery — so you can still control the door’s electronics even if the power goes out.

Despite the hardware-side integration, you still need to use three separate apps to control the electronics: the Ring app for the video doorbell, the Yale app for the Yale Assure SL door lock, and the M-PWR app for the door itself (including the lighting and the door sensor).

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A post shared by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy (@smarthomemama)

The downside of dropping this much money on tech integrated into your home is that you won’t be swapping out your door every few years, yet Ring and Yale will come out with new locks and doorbells. The good news is the parts are replaceable. I spoke with Cory Sorice, SVP and chief innovation officer of Masonite International, in 2022 and he confirmed this, saying: “The door will last decades, but the tech won’t — so it’s designed to make upgrades over time.” However, presumably, they’d have to be designed for this door, and there aren’t many hardwired smart locks on the market right now.

While this is the first time you can buy the door off-the-shelf, it has been installed in new-construction homes since 2022, and it’s UL certified. I checked out a model at the CEDIA Expo last year (see my “hands-on” video above), and it’s got potential. The integrated aspect of the doorbell looks much sleeker than current options, and not having to swap out batteries on your door lock every 4 to 6 months appeals. I also really like the integrated lighting. But while new front doors are not cheap, you are paying a significant premium here over non-smart Masonite doors and installing a smart doorbell and lock yourself.

PayPal announces a new CEO as its crypto push accelerates

PayPal announces a new CEO as its crypto push accelerates

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

PayPal’s new CEO will be Alex Chriss, starting September 27th, as first reported by CNBC. Chriss is currently the senior VP and CPO of small business for Intuit, and he will replace Dan Schulman. Schulman, who has been PayPal’s president and CEO since 2014, had previously announced plans to step down by the end of the year and will remain a director until next May.

The company recently announced its own US dollar-backed stablecoin called PayPal USD (PYUSD) earlier this month, allowing people to make person-to-person payments and transfer the currency between PayPal and other outside wallets. Cointelegraph reports that, on the same day, the PayPal terms of service also updated to mention a new Cryptocurrencies Hub where users can manage crypto assets including PYUSD.

Schulman mentioned at the time that digital currencies “requires a stable instrument” like the US dollar, and now, PayPal will move forward on it with a new CEO.

Chriss’ tenure at Intuit included leading the $12 billion acquisition of Mailchimp in 2021, and he handled small businesses and self-employed groups. “The Board search committee worked diligently and thoroughly to find the right candidate to take PayPal into its next stage of growth and expansion, and we are confident Alex is that person,” PayPal board of directors chair John Donahoe states in a press release.

BREAKING: Intuit’s Alex Chriss named new Paypal CEO (via @DavidFaber) https://t.co/5r7Y1HdlF4 pic.twitter.com/HQZ144oTfW

— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) August 14, 2023

Microsoft’s new Office default theme and font arrives in September

Microsoft’s new Office default theme and font arrives in September

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is currently testing a new Office default theme that will roll out to all subscribers of Microsoft 365 next month. Microsoft says it’s refreshing the default Office theme with the new Aptos font, a new color palette, styles, and updated default line weights.

Aptos, the new default font for apps like Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Excel, will replace Calibri next month after more than 15 years. The font change will also be combined with changes to the default style and color palette used in documents.

Image: Microsoft

Office theme changes.

The biggest change to the color palette is that yellow has been removed and replaced with a dark green, and one of the lighter blues has been replaced with a dark teal color. This should result in better contrasts between the shapes and lines that are available in Office documents.

The default style in Word and Outlook is also being refreshed to “make them easy to read, look more professional, and easy to navigate,” according to Jess Kwok, a product manager for Microsoft 365 apps.

Microsoft started testing these changes with Microsoft 365 Insiders in July, and the company now says they will be rolling out to all users at some point in September.

Firefox’s Android app is getting proper support for extensions once again

Firefox’s Android app is getting proper support for extensions once again

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Firefox’s Android app will soon support an “open ecosystem of extensions,” developer Mozilla has announced, allowing users to customize the browser with a wide range of third-party addons. An exact release date for the feature is yet to be announced, but in a blog post Mozilla’s Scott DeVaney said it should come before the end of the year. More details will be announced next month.

With the release, Firefox claims it will be the “only major Android browser to support an open extension ecosystem.” Extensions are currently not supported on Chrome for Android, the OS’s default browser, though Android Authority reports that it’s possible to get them working on smaller browsers like Yandex and Kiwi Browser. Over on iOS, Apple recently added support for extensions to its Safari browser.

The “only major Android browser to support an open extension ecosystem”

Extension support on Firefox for Android technically goes back years, but compatibility was massively reduced when the app was rebuilt in 2020. Since then it’s only officially supported a limited number of less than two dozen extensions, Android Police recently reported. While it’s still technically possible to run any desktop Firefox extension with the Android app, you need to enable a debug menu to do so, and Mozilla warns that this option is designed for “developers and advanced users” and may “lead to unexpected outcomes.”

“There is so much creative potential to unlock within the mobile browser space,” Firefox’s director of engineering Giorgio Natili said in a statement. “Mozilla wants to provide developers with the best support we can so they’re equipped and empowered to build modern mobile WebExtensions.” The company’s blog post includes a list of instructions for developers to ensure their extensions work as expected on Android, without falling prey to the operating system’s tendency to shut down resource-intensive processes.

Although Mozilla characterizes Firefox as a major Android browser, its market share pales in comparison to market leader Chrome, which Statcounter reports commanded nearly 65 percent of all mobile browsing (including iOS) as of July 2023. Firefox’s market share, meanwhile, sat at just half a percent.

Werner Herzog Is the Voice of A.I. Poetry

Werner Herzog Is the Voice of A.I. Poetry When asked to narrate an audiobook of machine-generated verse, Mr. Herzog readily agreed. “I wasn’t the best choice,” he said. “I was the only choice.”

Mark Zuckerberg says it’s ‘time to move on’ from the Elon Musk fight

Mark Zuckerberg says it’s ‘time to move on’ from the Elon Musk fight

Image: The Verge

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Threads post today that “it’s time to move on” from Elon Musk’s cage fight antics. “We can all agree Elon isn’t serious,” he wrote, adding that the refusal of the X (formerly Twitter) owner to confirm a date and his offer to “do a practice round in my backyard instead” shows how unserious he is.

This followed a pair of screenshots of text messages between the billionaires that were posted to X today by user DogeDesigner and, later, Musk himself. The thread showed Musk offering a “practice bout” next week at Zuckerberg’s house, to which Zuckerberg responded by telling Musk that if he wants a “real MMA fight” he should train on his own and let Zuck know when he’s “ready to compete.”

This is the full message: pic.twitter.com/UzbKoIkFOc

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2023

The two CEOs agreed in June to have the cage match. The whole idea seemed potentially entertaining on its face, but has instead been exhausting to follow as Musk makes unsubstantiated claims, including about where the fight will happen and who will benefit from it, only to kick the can down the road with a surgery announcement when his bluff is called. Zuckerberg, for his part, has continued to say he’s ready and willing to fight.

Zuckerberg previously posted that if the fight was going to happen, “you’ll hear it from me.” In other words, we don’t need to linger here any further. For now, at least. You just never know with these two.

Apple’s M3 Ultra Mac Studio could have a 32-core CPU and up to 80 GPU cores

Apple’s M3 Ultra Mac Studio could have a 32-core CPU and up to 80 GPU cores

The M3 Ultra Mac Studio. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple is reportedly testing an M3 Ultra chip with a significant CPU bump from 24 cores in the M2 Ultra to 32 cores in the next generation version of the chip, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. Developer logs reportedly also show a base configuration with 64 GPU cores and a top-end version with 80 GPU cores for Apple’s big desktop chip.

You can get an M2 Ultra Mac with a 60-core or 76-core GPU right now, making the next version of the chip a more modest improvement, from a graphics-processing standpoint, versus last year’s leap. The M2 Ultra at its top configuration saw a 12-core jump from the 64-core GPU of a maxed-out M1 Ultra Mac Studio.

That’s not to say computers with the new chip will be creaky by any means. The M2 Ultra Mac Studio already rips, and heck, even M2 Max-equipped MacBook Pro laptops are so capable that the pricey 2023 Mac Pro is struggling to find its place in the world.

The Bloomberg report says again that Apple is releasing M3 Macs in October — including a new iMac — but also reiterates that we won’t see computers with the M3 Pro or M3 Max until next year. Gurman predicts an M3 Ultra chip will be a late-2024 release “at the earliest,” based on Apple’s past release schedule.

The ‘Apple Watch X’ is reportedly a major redesign, but it’s not coming this year

The ‘Apple Watch X’ is reportedly a major redesign, but it’s not coming this year

Illustration: The Verge

Apple is preparing for its first major redesign in several generations of the mainline Apple Watch, but we won’t be seeing it this year, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter this morning. Instead, Apple is working on a thinner “Apple Watch X” with magnetic watch band attachment points, a blood pressure sensor, and a microLED screen either in late 2024 or even 2025, Gurman says.

The old mechanical attachments of all Apple Watches so far have been great for allowing customers to reuse their old bands for years, but Gurman says they eat up space the company could use to shrink the wearable and beef up the battery and internal components. See the Apple Watch Ultra, which Apple gave a bigger battery at the expense of compactness.

Rumors have swirled around a brighter, more colorful microLED screen for the Apple Watch for months, but the screen technology is new and incredibly expensive. Apple has had its work cut out for it when it comes to getting a shrunken-down, affordable version of the tech into its smallest-screen device. Apple has also reportedly been planning a blood pressure sensor for the Apple Watch for years, and that may come just in time for the 10-year anniversary of the wearable as well.

As for this year, Gurman reiterates past claims that the Apple Watch Series 9 will get a faster processor for the first time since the Series 6 debut but will keep the same screen sizes it used last year, including for the 49mm Apple Watch Ultra. If that’s true, it could be an even more minor update for the “Series” watches than last year’s.

The new app every movie lover needs

The new app every movie lover needs

Image: William Joel / The Verge

Hi friends! Welcome to the first-ever edition of Installer. My hope here every week is to be your guide to all the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. My original pitch for this was just “what if we just found all the cool apps/videos/creators/whatevers every week and put it all in one place,” and that’s what Installer is here to be.

Normally, these won’t start with a long preamble about How It All Works, but seeing as we’ve never done this before, I’ll try and explain things as we go. First and most important: Installer absolutely positively does not work without you. I’m going to do my best to find great new stuff every week, but I’m also hoping you’ll tag me in funny posts, DM me hilarious memes, and email me (installer@theverge.com) links to all the best stuff you encounter all over the web. We’re going to make this thing great together every single week.

There are two ways to get Installer: on theverge.com every Sunday morning or in newsletter form every Saturday. Subscribers get a full day’s head start. But David, you’re saying, I hate email. Who needs more email? I’m with you — I don’t like reading newsletters in my inbox either. But I have solutions!

• Many RSS readers, like Feedbin (link), Inoreader (link), and Feedly (link), give you an email address you can use to send newsletters like this one straight to the app. Personally, I do all my newsletter reading through Feedbin in Reeder (link) on iOS and Feeder (link) on Android, and it works great.
• You can also use a read-later app, some of which also offer email addresses. Matter (link) is a good one for Apple users, and Omnivore (link) and the (still-in-beta) Readwise Reader (link) work across lots of platforms.
• A lot of folks I know have an email address they only use for newsletters, which is probably the simplest and cheapest workaround. Or you can always break that AOL email out of retirement for just this purpose.

Oh, one other formatting thing. Wherever you see bold text and a “(link),” that’s something you can try, read, download, whatever — I’ll try and link directly to as many things as possible. I’ll also link related stories and information throughout, but click on a “(link)” and you’ll always go right to the good stuff.

Alright, enough of that. Let’s get to the good stuff. This week, I’ve been testing the Kagi search engine (link), reading about how to hack a card shuffler (link), getting back into Supernatural boxing (link) on the Meta Quest, watching and trying to figure out Full Circle (link), and binge-listening to the Spy Valley podcast (link). I also have a new note-taking app to tell you about, an animated show I think you’re going to like, and some tips on how to use my favorite new browser. Let’s go.

(Again, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)

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The Drop

This is where, every week, I’ll tell you about some of the best new stuff. Always new, always good, always worth checking out.

• Callsheet (link): I hate the IMDb app and the website with the huge banner telling you about the app. Callsheet is way better: a super-fast iPhone and iPad app for looking up cast and crew in whatever you’re watching, and JustWatch integration in case you wind up finding something more interesting to watch. (This was also by far the thing I heard most about this week — thanks to everyone who sent this in!)
• Strange Planet on Apple TV Plus (link): Nathan Pyle’s comic has been one of the best things on Instagram for years, and I’ve been really enjoying the new animated show as well. It has some Rick and Morty and Bojack Horseman DNA, plus a little bit of Ted Lasso vibes? Oh, and even if you don’t have Apple TV Plus, you can still watch the first episode at the link.
• Goodnotes 6.0 (link): Goodnotes is my favorite cross-platform tool for handwritten notes, and it just got some really clever updates — including an AI tool that can learn your handwriting, correct your spelling, and even write longhand for you. Wild.
• Nerf Pro Stryfe X (link): My colleague Sean Hollister called this “the best official blaster ever made,” and trust me, Sean knows his stuff. It’s the first-ever official Nerf blaster to use half-length darts, and it’s modded for outrageous firepower. It’s $120 and up for preorder now, and I suspect you’re gonna want to get on the list quickly.
• The YouTube Effect (link): A new doc from Alex Winter about the whole story of YouTube. There’s good, there’s bad, Section 230 appears, and it doesn’t cover a huge amount of new ground, but it’s a really good dive into the nuances of the platform. (I also just got off a podcast recording with Winter, so look out for that on The Vergecast on Wednesday.)
• Shortwave for Android (link): Shortwave is one of the few email apps I think is onto something really right. It’s a bit like Google Inbox in that it’s constantly sorting and categorizing your inbox to make it work. The Android app is a little buggy in this first iteration, but it’s still one to try.
• Netflix Game Controller (link): Netflix has been pushing into gaming for a while now, but this is the most interesting development yet — it’s building a controller app that you use to play games on your TV. It seems super early and maybe wasn’t released intentionally at all, but keep an eye on this one.
• The Lego Concorde (link): I have two competing thoughts on all these incredibly cool new Lego sets. One is they are absurdly, preposterously expensive — this one is $200 and isn’t even the worst you’ll find. But the second is that I want them all so, so, so bad.

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Pro Tips

The internet is full of tips and tricks. Some of them are great! Most of them are useless. In this space, every week, we’re going to learn how to use our stuff better from the people who know best: the ones who actually make the products.

First up: Josh Miller, the CEO of The Browser Company, which makes a browser called Arc (link) that continues to be one of the most interesting new apps on the market. Arc is finally available for all Apple users to download (and he swears Windows is coming soon!), so I asked him for a few tips for new and newish users. Here’s what he came back with:

• “Create two Spaces — one for work and one for personal — and add a Profile to each to keep your email logins and data separate (church & state)!”
• “As you start pinning tabs, make sure you right-click to Rename each one to something short and sweet — you’ll be amazed how much cleaner and personal your internet feels.”
• “Drag-and-drop a tab on top of your open webpage to create a Split Screen setup instantly. Multi-tasking without multiple windows FTW!”
• “Next up, this one is for David — create a third space and call it ‘Media’ or something, and then use it with Arc Mobile as a read- and watch-later list. Keeps focus during the day, and a fun pile to go through on nights and weekends.”
• “Finally, and you’ll have to trust me on this since it sounds silly: please pick a fun Theme color for each Space, and use Boosts to change the fonts and colors of your most-used apps. Your internet is better when it reflects your vibe, not some corporation.”

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Screen Share

Every week, I’m going to ask an interesting person to share their homescreen, plus a few things they’re into now. (Whose screen do you want to see, by the way? Let me know?) Our first guest: Nilay Patel, The Verge’s editor-in-chief and the person I know most likely to be paying for eight different music services for no particular reason. I was not disappointed.

Here’s Nilay’s homescreen, plus the apps he uses and why:

The phone: iPhone 14 Pro Max

The apps: Halide, Google Maps, Google Calendar, YouTube, Google Photos, The Verge (web app baby), Lightroom, Amazon, The New York Times, Slack, Kindle, Sonos, Instagram, Spotify (I never use this, why is this here), Lumen, Feedly, Apple News (I use News+!), Redfin (SIGH), Owl Strobe (this is a strobe light app for a record by the band Owls that I used for the limited edition Bluey record store day zoetrope dance mode record, and I have no regrets at all).

The wallpaper: the one true Max (my daughter)

I also asked Nilay for three things he’s into right now. Here’s what he said:

• I watched Twisted Metal (link) on Hulu by accident and then finished it because it’s purely ridiculous from start to finish.
• This TikTok (link) of someone building a bomber in Tears of the Kingdom with “Fortunate Son” playing and hashtag oil is a PhD thesis waiting to happen.
• I have a galley of Liar in a Crowded Theater by Jeff Kosseff (link), which comes out in October, and I think it’s one of the best books about free speech ever written. It’s like a series of increasingly complicated puzzles with no right answer.

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Crowdsourced

I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email installer@theverge.com with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. Thanks to everyone who already reached out — here’s a few of the ones I got this week:

“I have yet to find a song recognition app for Apple Watch that works better than SoundHound (link). The thing I love the most about SoundHound is a feature I didn’t even know I wanted: live lyrics for the detected song on my watch. It’s really cool and useful, and I don’t think there’s a single app other than Soundhound that does it (including Shazam, owned by Apple!).” — Xyan

“My current obsession gadget is the System76 Launch keyboard (link). Thing is amazing, metal build, made in Colorado, works on every OS... and of course RGB.” — Lee

“For travel, I will recommend: Flighty (link) for live status of planes. This app saved us hours of pain in our recent trip to Europe where the budget airlines were changing terminals at the last second without informing us. Tripsy (link), a travel itinerary app I don’t know how I traveled without before. Just open the app and it will show you what you are supposed to be doing now, along with any documents that are required for it.” — Dev

“An app called Beeper (link) is a fully realized all-in-one messaging app based on Matrix that preserves the open-source nature of the protocol and its surrounding apps. It’s a startup by Eric Migicovsky, founder of Pebble. I just got early access last week, and it’s amazing, with even more potential.” — Luke

“A recent iOS app I’ve been loving is Sink It for Reddit (link), which greatly improves the Reddit mobile experience through Safari. After the loss of our beloved Apollo, I tried the official Reddit app. It was such a terrible experience, battery life took a massive hit, and everything felt so clunky. Sink It now feels by far the best way to experience Reddit. Anything to avoid their own horrendous app.” — Richard

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Signing off

Most of the stuff in Installer I hope will be cool and useful and make your life better. But just once, right here at the end, I need to tell you about the silliest, most unnecessary, most delightful things on the internet.

This week: My80sTV (link), a website that actually lets you watch TV from the ’80s on an ’80s-style TV. In your web browser. Sure. There’s a dedicated site for every decade since the ’50s! It’s great. But in reading about this on Reddit, I found my actual favorite source for classic TV: a two-hour video of the TV Guide Channel (if you know, you know) from 2003. There’s a whole genre of videos like this on YouTube! Why! Anyway, if you ever think you miss the way TV used to be, just flip this on for a while. Because you don’t.

Thanks again for being part of Installer’s first-ever issue. I’d love to hear what you think, what you want to see more of, and all the best stuff you see on the internet before next week’s issue. See you next week!

iPhone 14, 14 Pro owners complain about battery capacity that’s already falling off

iPhone 14, 14 Pro owners complain about battery capacity that’s already falling off

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Some iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro owners have complaints reminiscent of the bad old days of “batterygate,” reporting that with less than a year of service on the clock, their phones are already reporting more battery degradation than expected. Sam Kohl of AppleTrack tweeted in July that his iPhone 14 Pro had already dropped to a maximum capacity of 90 percent, a much faster dropoff than previous iPhones he’d owned, and the thread shows many other people with the same experience.

Kohl followed up with a video posted yesterday about the issue, saying it makes it hard for him to recommend the phone, especially considering how much it costs with a price of $999.

@imsamkohl

#greenscreen I paid $999 for this phone btw #apple #iphone #battery

♬ original sound - Sam Kohl

Officially, Apple says iPhone batteries should “retain up to 80 percent of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles.” The iPhone 15 series is expected to launch soon, and recent rumors have claimed those devices will see a battery size increase of 10 - 18 percent compared to current devices.

He’s not the only one seeing these kinds of numbers. Verge alum and Wall Street Journal senior tech columnist Joanna Stern wrote in her newsletter just this week that her iPhone 14 Pro is showing 88 percent battery capacity. Around The Verge, reports are mixed, with two 14 Pros down to 93 and 91 percent and another at 97 percent. In previous years, most haven’t seen a drop in reported capacity until two years of use, at least.

And that’s even before we account for the fact that it’s more expensive to replace the battery on an iPhone 14 or iPhone 14 Pro once it’s out of its one-year warranty (assuming you don’t have AppleCare or some other extended service plan). Last year the price went up by $30, from $69 on earlier devices to $99, although at least these days, you can always go the DIY route if you just don’t want to visit an Apple Store or third-party repair shop.

My iPhone 14 Pro is down to 88% battery capacity after less than a year.

Is it because I use my phone too much and have already hit 450 charge cycles?! (That's what Apple Store says.) Is it from heat from fast charging? Is there something up with the battery?

My newsletter…

— Joanna Stern (@JoannaStern) August 11, 2023

The battery health monitor for iPhones was added in the same iOS 11.3 update that allowed users to toggle the troublesome performance throttling that was the hallmark of batterygate, which Apple said was a measure to protect iPhones from aging batteries, and eventually led to some large settlements.

We’ve contacted Apple about these reports and will update if we receive any additional information.

iRobot’s Roomba j7 Plus, our favorite robot vacuum, has hit an all-time low

iRobot’s Roomba j7 Plus, our favorite robot vacuum, has hit an all-time low

The Roomba j7 Plus offers everything you could want in a robovac, including an auto-empty dock. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

There’s a reason people still often refer to robot vacuums as “Roombas.” The company behind the well-known robovac series, iRobot, has spent decades iterating in the space, resulting in some of the best robot vacuums you can buy. The Roomba j7 Plus is a great example, one that’s on sale at Wellbots for Verge readers for $549 ($250 off) — its lowest price to date — with coupon code VERGE200.

While still pricey, the j7 Plus brings together a host of terrific features for under $550. Its dual rubber roller brush system is great at picking up dirt off your floor, while its intuitive AI obstacle avoidance ensures it will steer clear of cables, stray pairs of shoes, and even pet waste. It’s also known to receive new features — a recent update added Siri support, for instance, while another added the ability to use it as a security camera — which has only made it a better robovac since we first tested it last year.

Unlike the standard j7, the discounted “Plus” model on offer here comes with a slick auto-empty dock, which typically retailers for about $250 on its own and cuts down on unwanted maintenance. Wellbots is also heavily discounting the Roomba Combo j7 Plus using the same promo code, which drops the mop-equipped model down to $799 ($250 off).

While nothing has been confirmed (yet), Apple is widely expected to unveil its next set of smartwatches alongside the iPhone 15 next month — which is perhaps why we’re currently seeing some steep discounts on some last-gen models. Right now, for instance, you can pick up a 41mm Apple Watch Series 7 with LTE at Walmart for $299 ($100 off), one the best prices to date on the 41mm model with cellular connectivity.

As my colleague Victoria Song noted in her review of the Apple Watch Series 8, the latest model isn’t all that different from the last-gen Series 7. It touts Apple’s newer Crash Detection feature and temperature sensors for menstrual tracking, but, otherwise, the two are nearly identical. The Series 7 features roughly the same processing power, the same always-on display, and all of the same health-tracking features — not to mention forward compatibility with watchOS 10 when it launches in the fall.

In the end, you’re saving $130 by opting for the last-gen smartwatch over its newer counterpart, even with all the discounts the Series 8 is currently receiving at Amazon, Walmart, and other retailers.

Read our Apple Watch Series 7 review.

A few more deals for your Saturday

• Razer’s Stream Controller X, a customizable controller with 15 LCD buttons, is matching its all-time low of $125.90 (about $24 off) at Amazon. There’s no denying that it looks and functions a lot like Elgato’s Stream Deck MK.2 — a favorite amongst Verge staffers — but it runs on Loupedeck’s software as opposed to Elgato’s. Still, if you’re someone who wants an easy way to program various macros for controlling your smart lighting, operating your Twitch stream, or performing other tasks, it poses a nice alternative.
• Let’s face it, the time for scoffing at entry-level wireless earbuds has long since passed. There are now plenty of budget-friendly options to choose from — including Sony’s WF-C700N, which are on sale at Best Buy right now for $89.99 ($30 off). The comfortable earbuds make for a solid value, with reliable performance, terrific software features, and decent sound for the price. Best of all, they now offer multipoint support thanks to a recent firmware update, so you can connect them to two devices at once. Read our review.
• The original Theragun Mini, a portable massage gun we often spotlight in our gift guides, is down to $139.99 ($60 off) at Best Buy. The last-gen model is not quite as light or as quiet as the second-gen version, but it’s still a surprisingly powerful tool with three speeds for addressing knots and muscle aches on the go.
• Admittedly, I’ve always been an advocate of using less technology outdoors, not more. That said, I can’t help but recommend Anker’s Powerhouse 521, which is matching its all-time low of $186.99 ($33 off) at Amazon right now. The portable, 200W power station is great for charging your gadgets when you’re away from a power source, with a built-in floodlight, an LED readout, and plenty of ports (including two AC outlets and a lone USB-C port). Hell, it can even power small appliances in a pinch, should you need it.
• The launch lineup for the PSVR 2 was, to put it mildly, meh. That said, Horizon Call of the Mountain remains a fantastic glimpse into what Sony’s PC-grade virtual reality headset is capable of. And right now, Monoprice is selling the PSVR 2 with Call of the Mountain for $549.99 ($50 off), which is one of the first discounts we’ve seen on Sony’s new VR headset for the PS5. Read our review.

How to set up parental controls on your PS5

How to set up parental controls on your PS5

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Today’s kids are tech-savvy at a very young age, but you might not want your children sitting down in front of a PS5 without some guardrails in place. Sony has built parental controls right into the software for its console, and they can be used in combination with the user profiles feature to put limits on what your kids are able to do.

These limits cover everything from the number of hours your kid can spend gaming to how much they can spend on in-game purchases, and it all ties into the accounts you’ve got configured on your console. The bulk of these parental controls can be managed on the web as well as on the PS5, though new child accounts must be created on the web.

Family management on the web

First of all, you need to tell Sony who’s in your family before you can start restricting what they’re able to do on the household PS5. Assuming you already have a PlayStation Network (PSN) account:

• Go to your Account Management page in a web browser.
• Click Family Management > Set Up Now > Add a Child.
• You’ll need to provide a date of birth for the child, an email address, and a password so they can sign into the PS5.

You’ll then be shown a series of parental control settings that will be applied to the account, covering which games, VR features, and websites can be accessed on the PS5.

You’ve got a choice of parental controls for child accounts.

• Click Age Level for PS5 games to set a new age level — by default, this will be calculated based on the date of birth you provided.
• Click Use of PS VR2 and PS VR if you have a virtual reality headset. Choose Restrict, and your child won’t be able to use these devices without your permission.
• Click Web Browsing and then Restrict to stop games and chats from opening web links without your permission while your child is signed into the PS5.
• Select Confirm.

Now, you get another group of settings to work through.

• Choose Communication and User-Generated Content and Restrict to block features such as voice chat, the sending and receiving of messages, and the sharing of screenshots.
• Choose Monthly Spending Limit to put restrictions on how much your child can spend through the PS5 — amounts range from zero to unlimited, with several amounts in between.

You can set how much playtime there should be, when it can begin, and when it should end.

• Click Confirm, then set your time zone. After this, you’ll immediately be asked to configure screen time restrictions based on how long your kid can be on the console per day and between what times. Select Confirm again and Agree and Add to Family, and you’re done.

For any setting where you’ve chosen Restrict rather than Don’t Restrict, if your child tries to use the feature in question, you’ll be sent a permission request via email or to the PlayStation mobile app if you’ve got it installed. You can then make a one-time exception if you want to.

You can return to the Account Management page on the web at any time to change these settings or to see your child’s activity on the PS5 (how many hours per day they’ve been gaming, for example). You can also access the same parental controls on the console.

Add child accounts on the PS5

Now that Sony knows who’s in your family, you can add them to the user accounts on your PS5. Your kid will be able to sign in to their own account, with their own games, high scores, and preferences, and with your parental control settings applied.

Log out of your account by selecting your avatar (top right on the homescreen) and then choosing Log Out. Then, pick Add User to let your youngster sign in — they’ll be able to set their own username and profile picture along the way.

How the child account works

A child account doesn’t have the same privileges as an adult account. If your kid opens Settings (via the cog icon, top right), then Family and Parental Controls, they won’t be able to edit those controls — but they will be able to see how much playtime they’ve got left for today.

If you want to make changes or tweak the controls, you just have to head back to your own account on the PS5 and open up the console settings via the cog icon in the top right corner of the homescreen. From there, you can access all of the parental controls that we’ve previously covered on the web interface.

• Pick Family and Parental Controls > Family Management and then choose the child account to make changes.

Your PS5 will tell you how long your kid has been gaming today.

• Select Change Playtime for Today to give your kid more time on the PS5 or to see how much time they’ve already spent gaming.
• Select Allowed Games to see pending requests from your child for games that have been blocked or communication options (like voice chat) that aren’t allowed.
• Select Parental Controls to tweak all of the settings you already configured on the web, from the monthly spending limit to age range restrictions on games.

You can edit all the parental controls on the PS5, including which games are allowed.

It’s a good idea to protect your PSN account on the PS5 with a PIN code — otherwise, your child could simply log in as you on the console and turn off parental controls. To do this from the PS5 Settings screen, pick Users and Accounts > Login Settings > Require a PS5 Login Passcode.

It doesn’t really make a difference whether you manage parental controls on the web or on the PS5. It’s exactly the same selection of options, so use whichever you find the most convenient — though you do get more information on your kid’s activity if you log in on the web. For example, if your child is allowed to tweak the privacy settings, you can see what the settings are and when they’ve changed.

The video call revolution is dead

The video call revolution is dead

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Three years ago, video chat appeared set to revolutionize the way we work. All we actually got was slightly better video chat.

Video-first communication obviously became much more important to many with the covid pandemic. With people suddenly forced to use video chat for work, school, and even to visit with their families, there was a rush of interest in apps and platforms that promised to make the concept of sitting in front of a webcam a bit more exciting.

Remember when video chat apps were everywhere?

Lots of companies rolled out ways to watch videos together. Meta rolled out 50-person Messenger Rooms. Video messaging apps Houseparty and Marco Polo blew up. Hopin tried to make virtual events feel more like an in-person conference. Mmhmm offered fun options and effects to make video calls less like staring directly into somebody’s window. Snap Camera became a popular way to add filters to video calls. Even Verizon invested big into video conferencing, snapping up BlueJeans for around $400 million and making vague promises about integrating it with 5G.

Zoom, meanwhile, became a verb and a household name practically overnight. It launched an app store, an events platform for everything from yoga classes to doctor visits to worldwide conferences, and a whole suite of other productivity tools with video chat at the center. The company suddenly looked like the future of life, business, school, and everything. It even partnered with Meta to bring Zoom to Meta’s Horizon Workrooms VR productivity space.

Even after all that, the actual experience of video chat is maybe in its most boring state ever. Now that many people are gathering as they did before the pandemic started (even Zoom is demanding that some employees come back to the office), the market is largely run by tech giants and the pace of new and interesting features has slowed to practically nothing. This is the case with many tech changes brought on by the pandemic, but video was supposed to be the one that stuck around.

Hopin offloaded its events and webinars businesses to RingCentral as part of a “strategic relationship” announced earlier this month. Mmhmm is still around, but I haven’t run into anyone outside of my colleagues or fellow tech journalists that has ever mentioned the tool. Houseparty, the group video chat app from the creators of Meerkat, was acquired by Epic Games in 2019 but shut down in 2021. Verizon just announced that it will be shutting down BlueJeans. Heck, Snap even shut down Snap Camera.

So what does the landscape look like now?

Image: Apple

Zoom is still a force. I attend briefings and meetings using the platform all the time, even though Vox Media itself is a Google Meet house. But Zoom calls themselves still feel remarkably similar to how they did early on in the pandemic, even with added features like facial effects, avatars, and AI summaries. Zoom is increasingly trying to find a business beyond video chat, though I don’t know anyone who uses its Slack-like Team Chat or its email and calendar services, and I think I’ve attended one event on Zoom’s virtual events platform.

Google Meet has come the farthest. Google wisely rebranded the app from “Hangouts Meet” to “Google Meet” in April 2020, which separated it from the confusing and now-dead Hangouts brand. Over time, Google addressed some obvious missing features and improved the app’s overall stability. I generally don’t think about how to use it when I’m actually using it, which Google should count as a win, but I still wouldn’t say using Google Meet is a joy.

Microsoft continues to invest in video conferencing features for its Teams collaboration app, and I’ll give the company some credit for integrating Snapchat’s Lenses to add some fun to video calls. But there’s something ironic about Microsoft investing so much in another straightforward way to video chat when it already has Skype.

The future of video chat apps isn’t all bleak. Apple has a few interesting ideas that are coming with macOS Sonoma, some of which are borrowed from others: You’ll be able to make your face appear in a little movable bubble, make yourself much larger so that the focus is more on you, and make gestures to set off animated reactions. It’s great that these will probably be everywhere once Sonoma rolls out — especially since they’re all supposed to work with apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Cisco’s Webex — but are animated fireworks really the best thing we can add to video chat?

For hanging out on video calls with your friends, Discord’s Activities let you do things like play games with your pals or watch YouTube videos together. If your workplace uses Slack, I actually recommend its video huddles for short, impromptu conversations that feel like the deskside conversations I used to have when I worked in an office.

But it really does feel like the time to get hyped about video chat apps is over. Sure, Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams are all very good at what they do. It’s great that things like custom backgrounds and emoji reactions are commonplace no matter which app you use. But when I hop on a video call, I’m still largely just staring at boxes of people, and the apps have mostly become utilities that I’m just not that excited to use.

Video was supposed to be the future. Instead, it’s just another way to pick up the phone.