Here are the best deals on headphones and wireless earbuds we could find

Here are the best deals on headphones and wireless earbuds we could find

The Beats Studio Pro are nearly half off right now, which doesn’t happen all that often. | Image: Chris Welch / The Verge

When it comes to headphones and true wireless earbuds, there are a ton of brands and products to choose from. However, the sheer range of available models can also make them difficult to shop for, especially since many of them cater to different lifestyles, budgets, and priorities. Some are better suited for long-haul flights and vigorous workouts, for instance, while others let you tune out noise so you can focus better.

That’s why we’ve curated a list of the best headphone and earbud deals available. Here, you’ll find sales on all kinds of earbuds and over-ear headphones, all of which come with their own strengths and weaknesses. And if you want to do even more research before making a buying decision, we’ve put together guides to the best wireless earbuds and best noise-canceling headphones, which can help you determine which pair is right for you.

Best Apple deals

AirPods Pro (second-gen) deals

If you own an iPhone or multiple Apple products, the second-gen AirPods Pro are probably your best bet when it comes to wireless earbuds. In comparison to the base AirPods, the Pros offer better sound quality and feature active noise cancellation, not to mention seamless integration with iOS and a MagSafe-compatible charging case.

In 2022, Apple launched a new pair of AirPods Pro with improved sound quality and better noise cancellation. They also include onboard volume controls and a new MagSafe charging case, one that can beep if you ever misplace it thanks to its deeper Find My integration. The earbuds even come with an extra swappable tip for smaller ears.

A year later, Apple released the updated AirPods Pro with a USB-C charging case. Along with USB-C support, the wireless earbuds offer a more robust IP54 rating for water and sweat resistance. Plus, when paired with Apple’s forthcoming Vision Pro headset, they support lossless audio.

During Black Friday, we saw steep discounts on both versions of the second-gen AirPods Pro, with retailers taking up to $60 off. These deals have since resurfaced, and you can currently buy the AirPods Pro with USB-C at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy for $189 instead of $249.

Read our impressions of the latest AirPods Pro here.

AirPods (second-gen) deals

Alternatively, you can buy a pair of the second-gen AirPods with a Lightning charging case. Their sound quality isn’t quite up to par with newer models, however, they remain the cheapest Apple earbuds on the market and continue to pair seamlessly with a range of Apple products thanks to their built-in H1 chip. The entry-level AirPods normally retail for $129, but you can currently get them for around $99 at Amazon, Walmart, and Target.

The second-gen AirPods are a lot harder to get ahold of with a MagSafe charging case, that is, unless you’re shopping for a used or refurbished pair of earbuds. Luckily, you can still buy them in new condition at Adorama for $119.99 ($30 off).

Read our AirPods (second-gen) review.

AirPods (third-gen) deals

Last on Apple’s wireless earbuds block are the third-gen AirPods, which represent the latest iteration of the base model. They blend a bit of the AirPods Pro look with the hard plastic build of the second-gen model; they also offer IPX4 water resistance and improved sound quality over the latter, even if they are still lacking in the low end.

Right now, you can buy the third-gen AirPods with either a MagSafe charging case or a Lightning-only charging case. The option with the wired charging case is on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target for $149.99 ($20 off), while the option with the MagSafe charging case is going for $169.99 ($10 off) at Costco (if you’re a member) or for $174 at B&H Photo.

Read our AirPods (third-gen) review.

Best Beats deals

Beats Studio Pro

Last year, Apple-owned Beats replaced the Beats Studio 3 with the Beats Studio Pro. The over-ear headphones offer better sound quality thanks to new features like support for lossless audio over USB-C. They also cancel noise out far better, while allowing you to take advantage of both iOS and Android features, including Fast Pair and Google’s Find My Device platform. The Beats Studio Pro normally go for $349.99, but right now they are on sale for $179.99 ($170 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.

Read our Beats Fit Pro review.

Beats Fit Pro deals

The Beats Fit Pro are the latest fitness earbuds from Apple and offer a sportier design and better sound than the first-gen AirPods Pro. The wing tips help to keep them in place when you’re active, while also ensuring they remain comfortable over long listening sessions. Their functionality with Android phones is slightly limited, but if you use an iPhone, you get all the conveniences of Apple’s H1 chip and deeper OS integration and connectivity. Their only real downside is that the included charging case is overly large and lacks wireless charging (which is more forgivable at lower price points).

You can currently buy the Beats Fit Pro for $159.99 ($40 off) in select colors — including blue and yellow — at Amazon, Target, and Best Buy. You can also pick them up at Amazon and Best Buy in other shades, like black, for $20 more.

Read our Beats Fit Pro review.

Best Sony deals

Sony WH-1000XM5

They aren’t a huge departure from the previous model, but the Sony WH-1000XM5 are still our favorite pair of noise-canceling headphones. The XM5s improve on all of the features that made the XM4s so awesome by providing better active noise cancellation, improving the voice call quality, and boosting the overall sound of the already excellent headphones. While the lack of new features is a bit disappointing, the Sony XM5s remain one of our top recommendations for anyone looking for a premium pair of noise-canceling headphones.

Right now you can buy the XM5s in black for $299.99 ($200 off) at Amazon and Target, which remains one of their best prices to date.

Read our Sony WH-1000XM5 review.

Sony WH-CH720N deals

If you’re looking for noise-canceling headphones for under $150, Sony’s WH-CH720N might be worth a look. The budget-friendly headphones come with adjustable noise cancellation and are exceptionally light, which allows for a more comfortable fit. They also feature Bluetooth support and offer up to 35 hours of continuous playback on a single charge, though they lack support for Sony’s higher-quality LDAC codec.

The headphones typically retail for $149, but right now, you can buy the WH-CH720N in black for $99.99 at Amazon.

Sony WF-C700N deals

The WF-C700N are another pair of noise-canceling earbuds from Sony and are currently available for $85.85 ($35 off) at Amazon. They’re an exceptionally comfortable pair of earbuds with decent sound quality and support for an array of useful software features, including Fast Pair support on Android as well as location-based sound settings. Admittedly, their noise cancellation doesn’t truly drown out the world, but it does eliminate some sound. Voice call quality isn’t particularly impressive, either, but if you just need an affordable pair of earbuds to help you tune out some noise, the WF-C700N should do just fine.

Read our Sony WF-C700N review.

Best Bose deals

Bose QuietComfort 45 deals

The Bose QuietComfort 45 remains a terrific pair of noise-canceling headphones despite the fact Bose recently replaced them with the Bose QuietComfort Headphones. They’re foldable, so you can easily carry them around with you, and exceptionally comfortable. Battery life sits at 24 hours as well, meaning you needn’t worry about constantly having to charge them, and they include a transparency mode that comes in handy when you want to be more aware of your surroundings. They don’t come with adjustable noise cancellation and you can’t set custom listening modes like you can with the newer QC Headphones, but they’re otherwise a solid buy. And right now, you can pick them up for $229 ($100 off) at Best Buy and Target.

Read our Bose QuietComfort 45 review.

Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 deals

If you plan to frequently use your headphones for voice calls, Bose’s Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 are a great option for doing so. They boast excellent voice call quality, meaning everybody on your Zoom call will be able to hear you loud and clearly, and they offer great noise cancellation with satisfactory sound. The over-ear headphones can also connect to two devices simultaneously but only offer 20 hours of battery life, which is less than other top noise-canceling headphones.

Unlike the new Bose QuietComfort Ultra, however, they don’t have a foldable design or physical controls. Their call quality and noise cancellation aren’t as impressive, either, and they lack the higher-quality Bluetooth codecs and immersive audio mode found in Bose’s newer headphones. If none of that matters to you, though, you can, currently buy the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 for $299 ($80 off) at Best Buy.

Read our Bose Noise Canceling Headphones 700 review.

Best Google deals

Google Pixel Buds Pro deals

The Google Pixel Buds Pro are another good pair of noise-canceling earbuds, particularly for Pixel phone owners. The wireless earbuds offer terrific sound quality and battery life, along with useful features like multipoint Bluetooth connectivity. If you own a Pixel phone, you’ll also get access to exclusive features like head-tracking spatial audio and easy access to their settings menu.

We’ve seen the wireless earbuds sell for as low as $118, however, right now they’re only on sale in select colors at Amazon and Walmart starting at $149.95 ($50 off).

Best Samsung deals

Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro deals

Samsung has a few different wireless earbuds to choose from. Its most high-end pair, the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, launched in 2022. They’re still a good option if you’re an Android user or Samsung devotee who wants a pair of premium earbuds, with top-notch sound quality that’s even better than their predecessor. Samsung Galaxy phone owners can also take advantage of higher bit rate audio, while everybody can enjoy good active noise cancellation and a relatively robust IPX7 sweat and water resistance.

You can currently buy the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro on sale for $169.99 ($60 off) at B&H Photo and direct from Samsung.

Read our Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro review.

Samsung Galaxy Buds FE deals

In late 2023, Samsung launched a new pair of wireless earbuds, the Samsung Galaxy Buds FE. For a relatively affordable pair of buds, they deliver impressive noise cancellation along with solid audio performance. What’s nice is that they also come with wing tips, which should offer a more secure fit depending on your ear shape. The main trade-off, though, is that the budget-friendly buds lack multipoint connectivity and wireless charging.

If that’s not a problem for you, you can buy the Galaxy Buds FE right now for just $79.99 ($20 off) at Amazon and Samsung. That’s $10 shy of their all-time low, and their second-best price to date.

Best Jabra deals

Jabra Elite 8 Active deals

Jabra’s Elite 8 Active are a pair of fitness-focused earbuds and the successor to the excellent Elite 7 Active. They’re a terrific pair of earbuds if you like to go for runs, with a robust IP68 rating water resistance rating, adaptive ANC, and soon — thanks to a scheduled over-the-air update announced during CES — wind detection tech that should allow them to fare better under windy conditions. Plus, unlike similar offerings from Beats and Anker, the Elite 8 Active offer a secure fit without the need for added hooks or fins. At the same time, they retain the essentials, like support for multipoint and wireless charging.

Normally $199.99, they’re currently on sale for $159.99 at Amazon, Best Buy, and Jabra’s online storefront.

Jabra Elite 4 Active deals

If you prefer a more affordable pair of earbuds that are geared toward working out, there’s also Jabra’s Elite 4 Active. They come with IP57 water resistance and active noise cancellation (though you can’t adjust it) but lack wireless charging. However, if you’re fine without the extra bells and whistles, you can buy them for $79.99 ($40 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart.

Jabra Elite 3 deals

The Jabra Elite 3, Jabra’s budget-friendly wireless earbuds from 2021, are also available right now for a nice little discount. In his review, The Verge’s Chris Welch noted that even though the Jabra Elite 3 shed features like active noise cancellation and multipoint Bluetooth support, they still provide an excellent listening experience at a relatively low price point. Normally $79.99, the earbuds are currently available from Jabra, Target, and Walmart in select colors for around $49.99.

Read our Jabra Elite 3 review.

Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3 deals

At CES this year, Sennheiser announced the new Momentum True Wireless 4 wireless earbuds will be available on February 29th for $299.95. If you can’t wait until then, though, their predecessor, theMomentum True Wireless 3, are currently on sale.

We’ve yet to test the forthcoming earbuds, which Sennheiser says should offer better battery life and sound quality. Until we do, the third-gen earbuds remain our top pick if you prioritize sound quality above all else. They offer better noise cancellation than their predecessor, along with a sleeker design and wireless charging support. This does come at a fairly steep regular price of $279.95, but right now you can buy them starting at just $175 in black at Amazon. You can also buy them on sale in a greater number of shades for $199.99 at Best Buy and from Sennheiser directly.

Read our Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3 review.

Best UE deals

UE Fits deals

After testing a pair for ourselves, we remarked in our review that the UE Fits were the most comfortable consumer earbuds on the market. That’s because, unlike the other wireless earbuds on this list, the UE Fits are uniquely capable of permanently molding to the shape of your ears in just 60 seconds, making them a great choice for those concerned their earbuds may come loose or fall out. We also found that they offer good sound quality, as well as lengthy, eight-hour battery life. Normally $199, you can get them right now for $169.99 direct from Ultimate Ears.

Read our UE Fits review.

Best Nothing deals

Nothing Ear Stick deals

If you like the new Beats Studio Buds Plus because of their transparent look, Nothing’s Ear Stick earbuds are a cheaper option that’s currently available for $79 ($40 off) from Nothing. They’re not quite as capable as the Beats and lack premium features like active noise cancellation, but they’re certainly stylish thanks to their see-through design and tube-like charging case. The open-style earbuds also deliver good sound, along with improved battery life and better voice call quality than their predecessor.

Read our Nothing Ear Stick review.

Walmart is bringing drone deliveries to 1.8 million more Texas households

Walmart is bringing drone deliveries to 1.8 million more Texas households

Image: Walmart / Zipline

Walmart is expanding its drone delivery program to 1.8 million more households in Texas. The retailer says its drone deliveries now cover 75 percent of the population in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, all thanks to partnerships with drone startups Wing and Zipline.

Walmart launched its drone delivery program with Zipline and DroneUp in Arkansas in 2021 before expanding it to more states in 2022. The newly expanded service in Texas allows customers living within 10 miles of a participating Walmart to get items delivered to their homes via drone.

GIF: Walmart

Since there is a weight limit, customers can only have smaller products like cold medicine, birthday candles, and even a carton of eggs delivered. Walmart says deliveries arrive in 30 minutes or less, with some reaching customers’ doorsteps in as fast as 10 minutes.

In 2023, Walmart partnered with Wing, which is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, to deliver to 60,000 more homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area from two different stores. But this marks its biggest expansion yet, adding 30 more towns and municipalities within the Texas metroplex. The program also now uses drones from both Wing and Zipline to make deliveries in the area, both of which are approved by the Federal Aviation Administration to fly drones “without a dedicated observer being able to see the drone at all times.”

Image: Walmart

These are all the areas Walmart’s drone delivery service will soon cover.

“Zipline is excited to enable Walmart’s vision of providing customer delivery so fast it feels like teleportation,” Zipline co-founder and CEO Keller Rinaudo Cliffton said in a statement. “We’re excited for folks across Dallas-Fort Worth to experience delivery that is 7x as fast, zero emissions and whisper quiet.”

So far, Walmart has completed over 20,000 successful drone deliveries. Wing says it will start delivering to new locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area “in the coming months” and expects to complete the expansion with Walmart within the year. You can check if your address can receive drone deliveries from Walmart on the Wing and Zipline websites.

SEC’s X Account Hacked, Causing Frenzy Over Bitcoin ETF

SEC’s X Account Hacked, Causing Frenzy Over Bitcoin ETF The X account of the Securities and Exchange Commission announced the approval of an investment product linked to Bitcoin. It wasn’t true.

MSI made a $5,000 laptop with an RGB trackpad

MSI made a $5,000 laptop with an RGB trackpad

This beefy boy packs a whole lot of power.

MSI is debuting a bunch of new laptops at CES 2024, but none are quite as over the top as the Titan 18 HX A14V, a boat anchor of a gaming laptop that costs as much as a beater car and has one of the coolest (or most garish, depending on your preference) trackpad designs I’ve ever seen.

The Titan 18 HX sports an 18-inch Mini LED display with 3840 x 2400 resolution and 120Hz refresh, Intel’s new 14th Gen Core i9 14900HX processor, an RTX 4080 or 4090 GPU with DLSS 3.5 support, up to 128GB of DDR5 RAM in its four slots, three M.2 SSD slots (one of which is PCIe Gen 5), a six-speaker audio setup, a SteelSeries-made mechanical keyboard, and a new vapor chamber cooler with a slick-looking exhaust design on the laptop’s elevated underside.

Note: due to LED flickering, the trackpad appears to have dark spots in some captured photos, but in person, the lighting was seamless.

Being such a beefy laptop, it has room for plenty of ports, with two Thunderbolt 4 / USB-C ports, three USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, HDMI 2.1, and a full-size SD card reader. While all of this costs an eye-watering $5,000, it also weighs a shoulder-tiring 7.94 pounds / 3.6kg. And like other new MSI laptops, it has AI-based performance profiles that promise to optimize settings based on whether you’re gaming or doing other tasks like video conferencing. Though, I expect almost nobody buying this behemoth is going to do much outside of play games with it and won’t be moving it around. This desktop replacement machine is meant to mostly live in one spot and play games as it lets its colorful peacock feathers of RGB lighting shine.

In addition to the usual per-key RGB lighting that’s found on most gaming laptops, the Titan’s most unique accoutrement is its edge-to-edge illuminated trackpad. It’s a small sight to behold up close, as the entire front deck of the laptop is a clean sheet of matte-finished glass with the trackpad lighting up in the middle. It’s certainly a look, and it uses MacBook-like haptics to maintain a clicky feel when you press it. It’s silly and fun and lands squarely in the “I know nobody needs this but I’m glad it exists” camp. Because, come on, if you’re actually going to spend $5,000 on a gaming laptop, it should offer a bit of flair as well as have the specs to back it up.

Compared to last year’s very formidable Titan GT77 HX, the 2024 Titan is capable of 270W power output over the GT77’s 250W. The Titan 18 also has a display that’s bigger / taller by 0.7 inches but with a slightly slower refresh rate (120 versus 144Hz). That may be a fine compromise for the lovely and massive Mini LED panel of the new Titan, especially since it uses the much superior 16:10 aspect ratio compared to the last-gen’s 16:9 screen. The new model also has Wi-Fi 7, and while its battery is still a four-cell Li-polymer setup with 99.9Whr of capacity, its power supply is a whopping 400W brick for faster charging — yet it’s a little smaller than the previous 330W version.

Everything about the Titan is very Extra, as its name implies it very well should be. I’d love to know who actually buys these kinds of halo laptops, which are simply not made for mere mortals and seem to be a bit of a dying breed — the days of laptops like the absurd Acer Predator 21 X are long gone now.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Authy is shutting down its desktop app

Authy is shutting down its desktop app

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Authy, the two-factor authentication (2FA) app, will soon only be available on mobile devices. An updated support page spotted by Bleeping Computer says Authy’s app on Windows, macOS, and Linux will go away in August 2024.

Similar to other 2FA apps like Google Authenticator and Microsoft Authenticator, Authy generates a different code every 30 seconds that you can use to sign in to a linked account. However, Authy is one of the only 2FA apps available for desktop, making it an ideal choice when you want to sign into an account on your computer without having to get out your phone.

If you have a Mac with M1 or M2 silicon, Authy says you’ll still be able to download the iOS version of the app on your device. Otherwise, Authy recommends switching to the mobile version instead, which you can automatically sync with the app on your computer. If you’d rather switch apps altogether, it’s worth noting that Authy doesn’t come with an export feature. That means you’ll have to disable 2FA on all of your connected accounts before linking them with a new 2FA app.

Twilio, Authy’s parent company, is also moving Authy’s customer support hub to the help center on Twilio’s website after January 15th, 2024.

Twilio says it made the decision to sunset its desktop app to “streamline our focus and provide more value on existing product solutions for which we see increasing demand.” The company laid off 5 percent of workers in December 2023, and it just announced on Monday that it has replaced its CEO.

Withings’ latest gadget combines a thermometer, pulse oximeter, EKG, and stethoscope

Withings’ latest gadget combines a thermometer, pulse oximeter, EKG, and stethoscope

Of course, it has to get FDA clearance first. | Image: Withings

Withings always shows up to CES with a futuristic health tech device in tow, and this year is no different. The company’s latest gadget is the $249.95 BeamO, a so-called multiscope that measures your temperature, takes electrocardiograms, reads blood oxygen levels, and works as a stethoscope to monitor heart and lung health.

The device itself resembles some of Withings’ other contactless thermometers, but it contains photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors, electrodes, a digital stethoscope, and a second-gen version of the infrared temperature sensor in the Withings Thermo. You’re probably more familiar with PPG sensors as the green LED you find in most smartwatches that measures heart rate by shining light into the skin. The sides of the BeamO also have electrodes to enable EKG readings for atrial fibrillation detection.

Image: Withings

Like Withings’ Thermo thermometer, the BeamO will take contactless temperature readings from the temporal artery.

But more interesting is how Withings has managed to stick a stethoscope into the mix. It does this by including a piezoelectric disc. The gist is the disc captures acoustic noise from your chest or back and then converts it into an electric signal that can be read by the BeamO. (This is how many electronic stethoscopes work.) The device also has a USB-C to headphone jack adaptor so you can listen in before transferring the audio to the Withings app. In telehealth sessions, you can also stream the audio directly to your provider.

These are all measurements that you can already take at home. You could buy a stethoscope, infrared thermometer, and pulse oximeter, and many smartwatches have similar single-lead EKG functions. Many wearables already let you save your data in PDFs that can be shared with doctors. The novel thing here is condensing them all into a single device that can be shared within a family.

Image: Withings

The BeamO is a 4-in-1 device that measures temperature and blood oxygen levels and takes EKG readings. It also doubles as a stethoscope.

Of course, there are some other factors at play, too. The EKG and AFib detection features will need to undergo the FDA clearance process. Withings says in its press release that it expects the BeamO to go on sale in June this year, but if I had a dollar for every time a health tech company failed to hit their initial FDA clearance estimates, I’d be a millionaire.

Withings in particular has had so-so luck with announcing a gadget at CES and getting timely FDA clearance. It introduced its Move ECG watch at CES 2019, but that product never actually made it to the US. At CES 2020, it introduced the ScanWatch, which also had EKG testing and sleep-related SpO2 monitoring features. However, it took the watch nearly two years to actually go on sale in the US. Meanwhile, the company announced the Withings Body Scan, a smart scale with EKG features, at CES 2022, but it took until August 2023 to get FDA clearance. We’re still waiting on the U-Scan, the at-home urinalysis device Withings brought out for CES 2023.

In any case, Withings has clearly invested a lot of resources in the past few years in building out its at-home health platform. The BeamO is just the latest entry in that ecosystem. It just might take a hot second before Withings can fully realize its telehealth vision.

The horror and allure of the diagonal monitor

The horror and allure of the diagonal monitor

22-degree rotation in macOS: a concept image. | Image: Wes Davis / The Verge

On Windows and Mac, you can rotate your monitor 90 degrees, or even 180 degrees if you’re a vampire, but that’s it. Well, macOS lets you pick 270 degrees, too, but that’s just 90 degrees in the other direction, so don’t get too excited. Linux, on the other hand, has no problem with chaos, so you can rotate your display to any degree you’d like.

Tom’s Hardware published a story about this in late December, pointing to a blog from a developer called xssfox, who said there was one perfect monitor rotation for developers, and it’s not the regular landscape view, nor is it portrait, AKA 90-degree rotation. 22 degrees, they insisted, is perfect — at least on an ultrawide display.

This, they said, is because it “provides the longest line lengths,” and gets rid of “that pesky 80 column limit.” They added that one disadvantage is that your webcam will slide away, but I’d imagine a little duct tape could handle that. There are instructions in the blog on achieving it, but needless to say, even on Linux, it’s not totally straightforward and requires a tool called xrandr and the input of lots of numbers.

Here’s a fun Instagram reel showing what this looks like:

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A post shared by UFD Tech (@ufd_tech)

The Castro podcast app and its website are down

The Castro podcast app and its website are down

The Verge

Longtime iOS podcasts app Castro has been down since Friday and its website no longer exists a month after the team behind Castro denied rumors that the app was shutting down. Users started reporting on Friday that they’re unable to download new episodes or access Castro’s website. When The Verge reached out to the contacts that were listed on Castro’s site, all of our emails were returned as undeliverable because the domain could not be found.

A Friday Reddit post is full of replies from people unable to use significant parts of the app, and recent reviews from its listing on the iOS App Store tell the same story. When we downloaded the app to verify, we were unable to connect to Castro’s servers to find shows to listen to.

The app has been visibly on the ropes since at least November, when the app was down for a few days because of a database problem that turned out to be more complicated than the team first expected. That same month, some outlets and blogs reported that Castro’s shutdown was imminent, but Castro managed to get its service back up and running.

Shortly after that, the team posted on X (formerly Twitter) that any communications pertaining to its imminent demise were “unofficial.” The post linked to a December 1st blog that’s no longer directly accessible as its site is now down.

An archived version of the post denied reports that Castro was shutting down, but admitted the company is “seeking a new home for Castro with new owners” after an unspecified number of employee departures. One such rumor came from a former Castro team member, Mohit Mamoria, who posted on November 27th that the app would be “shut down over the next two months.”

Rumors of Castro’s shutdown come as big parts of the podcast industry have been pruned away. Stitcher shut down last year and Spotify recently cut staff and cut high-profile narrative podcasts to focus on cheaper productions.

The Verge reached out to Castro parent company Tiny, but did not receive a response by press time.

Xreal’s new AR glasses are aimed at the Apple Vision Pro

Xreal’s new AR glasses are aimed at the Apple Vision Pro

The Air 2 Ultra bring back full-fledged tracking capabilities. | Image: Xreal

Augmented reality company Xreal has revealed a new entry in its Air glasses lineup: the $699 Air 2 Ultra. The Air 2 Ultra glasses, which developers can preorder today for shipment starting in March, are ultimately meant to compete with Meta’s Quest 3 and Apple’s Vision Pro headsets. They’re more full-featured than the $399 Air 2 model that Xreal — formerly Nreal — launched late last year, offering full positional (six degrees of freedom, or 6DOF) tracking in Xreal’s typical sunglasses-style form factor. That makes them ripe for not just watching TV or playing flat-screen games on a projected screen but also running immersive AR apps, which is exactly what Xreal hopes developers will do with them.

Xreal pitches the Air 2 Ultra as a full-fledged “spatial computing” device similar to its earlier Light mixed reality device, which also featured 6DOF tracking. Like the rest of the Air lineup, the Air 2 Ultra projects a floating image in front of users’ eyes. But it adds dual 3D cameras, one on each side of the glasses, that can map the wearer’s environment and enable special features like hand tracking. That allows developers to build apps that blend physical and digital space rather than simply displaying a conventional game, application, or video feed like the Air 2.

The Air 2 Ultra offers a 52-degree field of view compared to the 46-degree Air 2; both products feature 500 nits of brightness, a 1080p screen for each eye, and a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. The Ultra glasses are a touch heavier, though, weighing 80 grams compared to 72 grams for the standard Air 2. Like the Air 2, they can be plugged into a range of computing devices, including macOS and Windows-based computers, Samsung Android phones, and the iPhone 15. On Android, macOS, and Windows, they will support Xreal’s Nebula AR environment.

The Air 2 Ultra is aimed primarily at developers for now, but it will be sold through Xreal’s site to anyone who’s interested, shipping in the US, the UK, China, Japan, Korea, France, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands. (The Air 2 is currently available to consumers in the US, Europe, and Asia.) It was unveiled shortly after Xreal announced it had shipped 350,000 pairs of AR glasses to date and would be expanding Air 2 availability to more countries in 2024.

The mixed reality options of the older Light glasses were fairly rudimentary, and stripping them out to save some weight and money made sense. But re-adding 6DOF tracking lets Xreal more directly compete with its best-known US competitors: Apple and Meta. Apple’s $3,499 Vision Pro is rumored to launch in February, and Apple has promised that developers will be able to create spatially immersive experiences alongside projected flat screens. Meta’s $499 Quest 3, which debuted last October, combines full-fledged virtual reality with mixed reality apps like digital tabletop games. Both headsets use passthrough mixed reality, which overlays digital objects on a video feed, rather than the direct projection that Xreal offers — although Meta is working on projection-based AR glasses more similar to the Air 2 Ultra, and Apple is likely doing the same.

Correction: The Air 2 Ultra was originally described by Xreal as being exclusively for developers; shortly after publication, Xreal told us it would be made available to consumers through its site as well. We’ve updated the story to reflect this.

A better all-in-one AI app is finally here

A better all-in-one AI app is finally here

Image: William Joel / The Verge

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 20, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, hello, welcome, hi, what’s up, how are you, welcome to the gang, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

It’s our first issue of 2024, a number that still feels deeply strange to type — hope you had a good holiday and a nice break! I spent most of mine sick and then caring for a sick kid, which meant a lot of Elmo and The Office and trying as ever to beat my high score in Holedown.

This week, I’ve also been reading about crypto farms and AI influencers and Tara Reid, breaking in my new Instant Pot air fryer (send me recipes!), poring over Matt Mullenweg’s annual “What’s in My Bag” post, playing an upsetting amount of EA Sports FC 24, immersing myself in the r/KeyboardLayouts subreddit, discovering new tunes through a massive mashup of songs that turn 40 this year, and finally getting around to cleaning up my desk.

I also have for you some new AI apps, a new Wordle-like game, some fun stuff to watch, and some games and shows worth revisiting. Some of this stuff isn’t from this week, so consider this more of a while-you-were-holidaying catch-up issue.

(As always, 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 want to get Installer in your inbox a day before it publishes here, subscribe here.)

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The Drop

• Microsoft Copilot. This is Microsoft’s all-encompassing AI app, basically a ChatGPT competitor but much nicer to look at. I like it so far! Just how big a deal is Copilot to Microsoft? It’s adding a Copilot key to Windows keyboards — the first new key in three decades.
• Clicks Creator Keyboard. It’s 2012 all over again, y’all! It’s been a long time since I got excited about an iPhone accessory, but this physical keyboard attachment looks delightful. I wonder if my fingers even remember how to type on a phone keyboard.
• Bitconned. Another in the increasingly large canon of delightful documentaries about crypto antiheroes. This Netflix one is a little different, though: it’s basically just a crime story told by the criminal at the heart of it. I wouldn’t take it as, you know, Gospel Truth, but it’s a fun story.
• iA Presenter. If you’re a person who occasionally needs to make really nice slide decks but kind of hates making slide decks, this app is a godsend. Simple, straightforward, kind of impossible to screw up. The app has been out on Mac for a while, but it’s now in beta for the iPad and iPhone, and it looks great.
• Trivial Pursuit Infinite. Not exactly the most innovative or surprising Wordle-type game — it’s just, you know, a bunch of trivia questions every day. But it’s fun! And the AI mode is neat, too: pick a topic, any topic, and it’ll generate (in my experience, sometimes very weird) questions for as long as you feel like answering.
• The First Time Somebody Has Ever “Beat” Tetris. I don’t even really know how to explain this: it’s just 40 minutes of some lightning-fast Tetris playing that becomes more and more dramatic and ends in both a deeply boring and totally thrilling way. It’s a feat of athleticism, playing this way! Also, here’s a good explainer video about why this is such a big deal.
• The StoryGraph. This app has had kind of a moment — like, a “the servers broke we’re too popular” moment — over the last week or so, largely because it’s such a great place for readers. It got some new stuff, too, like barcode scanning for book tracking and a really great recommendations section. I’m going to use this and Letterboxd both a lot more this year.
• The Hollywood Reporter’s Full Songwriters Roundtable. I could watch this group of hugely accomplished songwriters — Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Dua Lipa, Cynthia Erivo, Julia Michaels, and Jon Batiste — talk about making music, microphones, MP3 players, and how to stay creative and open pretty much forever. Bonus: the new Actress Roundtable is also fantastic.
• Public Domain Day 2024. Mickey Mouse is the biggest new name in the public domain this year, but there are a lot of cool movies, music recordings, and stories that are now available for anyone to publish and play with. Thanks to AI, we’re about to spend all of 2024 talking about copyright law, so let’s celebrate the wins when we get them!
• Tesla Cybertruck Full Tour! We. Have. Wiper answers. Courtesy of Out of Spec Reviews, this nearly two-hour video is as comprehensive a look at the Cybertruck as you’re ever going to find. Some cool stuff, some terrible ideas, and a very, very floppy wiper.

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Screen share

Every once in a while, The Verge’s Richard Lawler tries to use a Mac. He’s mostly a Windows guy, but he’s also our news editor and, in general, a guy who tries to stay up to date on everything, so he’s always switching around. And I always know when he’s trying a Mac again because he starts complaining about how bad the Mac’s window management tools are and how you have to download a separate app just to do basic OS-level stuff. (All fair points!)

Richard’s also not generally the “try everything new just because” type, so when I asked him to share his homescreen, I figured he’d show us a system that is simple and optimized and exactly what he needs. I was pretty much right.

Here’s Richard’s homescreen, plus some information on the apps he uses and why:

The phone: Pixel 8 Pro.

The wallpaper: This photo on the lock screen, and “Icelandic Aurora” from Google’s wallpapers.

The apps: Google Home, Google Wallet, Camera, IoCare, Google Keep, Nest, Clock, Google Chat, Google Photos, TikTok, Google Recorder, HondaLink, Google Play, Phone, Messages, Chrome, Gmail, Overdrop.

Overdrop is my weather app. I have a constant love / hate relationship with it because it seems like every 18 months or so it has a battery drain issue and I have to reinstall it for a while, but I always come back because it’s the best one for answering the question of “did enough snow come down last night that I need to get out of bed early and clean the car off?” At least without getting out of bed and looking out of the window.

The most important app on my homescreen (other than Google Keep for as long as that remains alive) is the homescreen. I’ve used Action Launcher for as long as I can remember, along with Voxel’s themed icons. Other than a consistent look, the customizable shortcuts via swipe or long press make it easy to get directly where I need to go.

I also asked Richard to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he said:

• I’m still playing Apex Legends and Overwatch just as poorly as I ever have, mostly as a companion to podcast listening.
• Season 4 of Open Mike Eagle’s What Had Happened Was just wrapped up, and it’s been my must-listen. It’s ostensibly a series of interviews with Questlove about The Roots’ history / discography through Things Fall Apart, but it’s also a time capsule of the entire late ’90s rap era told by someone who was there, covering The Notorious B.I.G., J Dilla, the Fugees, etc.
• Otherwise, it’s all NBA podcasts. My most recent addition is State of the League by JokicJoestar, and the TikTok I can’t stop watching is this channel that only posts old car ads like this one for the Chrysler Laser.

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Crowdsourced

Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. 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. And for even more recommendations than we can fit here, check out this Threads conversation and this one on Mastodon.

“Perplexity AI. I started checking it out today, and I really feel like they are onto something. The UI and presentation is all super slick, and the way it presents the sources of the information it is summarizing is a nice addition.” – Matt

“Wrestle Kingdom 18. New Japan Pro-Wrestling just relaunched their streaming service, and $12 gets you an incredible show with production values American companies just can’t match. It’s thrilling enough just for the camera zooms and excellent English commentary.” – Sawyer

“Spaces for Mac. It’s solved a lot of my issues with window management on Mac, and Workspaces is kind of genius. Workspaces declutter your screen and launch all the apps you need for a specific workspace *in the screen space you want them.* The window management system also appears when you hover near the webcam. There’s also a dedicated drop space. And the whole thing integrates with Raycast!” – Mario

“I wanted to take a moment to recommend the iSH app. As a software engineer, discovering a Linux virtualization environment running smoothly on iOS was a pleasant surprise. It might sound a bit out there, but it actually works seamlessly on your iPhone or iPad. Quite an unexpected find for anyone in the tech world!” – Andres

“Equinox. I have been really leaning into a distinct wallpaper for light mode and dark mode on my Mac. This app makes it super easy to make custom ones beyond those that Apple bundles in!” – Kevin

“I fell in love again with the Mastodon client IceCubes. Was using Mona for a while, but IceCubes got some serious updates these last few weeks. It’s gorgeous, feature-rich, and open source! Best Mastodon client out there.” – Daniel

“Recently finished Severance on Apple TV, and I’m obsessed. Awesome stuff if you’re a fan of Black Mirror. Can’t wait for the second season.” – Zook

“I’ve recently rekindled my interest in Marvel Snap. It’s an engaging, fast-paced card game perfect for brief gaming sessions. Just the other day, I enjoyed playing a few rounds right before my movie started at the cinema. It’s ideal for those short sessions!” – Wade

“I just tore through The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard. It’s 700-some pages but read very quickly. A middle-aged man is great at his job, but his family doesn’t understand what it is at all. He sees the loneliness of his boss and helps him encounter the world more normally.” – DLS

“I am absolutely loving the Plex and Tidal integration for listening to music and Pano Scrobbler for scrobbling to Last.fm. I’ve also been playing with the ChatGPT integration in Plexamp to make playlists with text prompts, and it’s been fun!” – J

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Signing off

I am forever in search of games I can play in tiny bits. For years, I’d play Mario Tennis on the Nintendo Switch as a way to take a break between meetings or kill a few minutes waiting for water to boil. But not many games are so easy to pick up and put down.

My new go-to is one I did not expect: Golf Plus on the Meta Quest. It’s a surprisingly realistic golf game, which you can play at a variety of difficulty levels and on lots of different courses from around the world. It’s a very chill game and fun enough that I’ve recently been searching things like “Can you attach a Quest controller to a real golf club” and am almost certainly about to drop $30 on this club-like Sanlaki accessory. I’ll play a hole, have a meeting, play three holes, more work. I’m that guy now! How did this happen? Time to buy some Dockers and a vest, I guess. Wish me luck.

See you next week!

Apple is sending out checks for ‘batterygate’ class action claims

Apple is sending out checks for ‘batterygate’ class action claims

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

Checks are apparently hitting the bank accounts of people affected by Apple’s decision to slow down iPhones with older batteries back in 2017. MacRumors reported that readers of its site said they’d seen checks deposited to their accounts amounting to $92.17, later updating the story with an embedded post from one of the readers. Indeed, the website set up for the settlement was updated in December to say the payments were expected to go out this month.

So ends the batterygate saga. It began in 2017 when a developer showed that certain iOS 10 updates throttled performance for older phones like the iPhone 6S and iPhone 7. The company wasn’t upfront about the purpose of the slowdown before this, but later said the goal was to keep phones from randomly shutting down once the battery degrades beyond a certain point. Multiple class action lawsuits cropped up, claiming the company’s actions drove people to upgrade early, rather than simply paying to have their phones’ battery replaced.

The company agreed to the settlement in 2020, and in August last year, one of the law firms representing customers in the lawsuit said a judge had cleared the last obstacle — a legal appeal — holding up the payouts, and that money would be sent soon. The phones affected were the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, 7, 7 Plus, and the original iPhone SE. At the time, the firm said that payments would be around $65, so if you filed an approved claim by October 6th, 2020, you may have a little more money than you expected coming your way soon.

Jackery’s rooftop tent is also a powerful solar generator

Jackery’s rooftop tent is also a powerful solar generator

The retractable panels help generate up to 4.96kWh per day in the western US, according to Jackery. | Image: Jackery

Jackery has converted the humble rooftop tent into a powerful solar generator that lets any car escape the grid for a weekend or longer. Although it’s just a concept on show at CES right now, Jackery says it will put the tent into production sometime near the end of 2024.

The retractable solar panels are said to produce up to 1000W when the car is parked and the tent is open and facing south. That’s enough to generate 4.96kWh per day in the western US, or 4kWh as you move east, according to Jackery’s estimates. There’s no mention of its resilience to wind, but that’s hardly a concern for a concept parked on ugly carpet inside the Las Vegas convention center.

Image: Jackery

A closer look at the system with a portable battery that is not the Jackery E1000 Plus power station being shown at CES.

Rooftop tents can already be fitted with solar panels made by any number of companies, including Jackery. But those tend to be lightweight flexible panels so as to not overwhelm the tent’s folding mechanism, and they rarely cover the entire surface area due to mismatched dimensions. That results in relatively poor solar conversion efficiency for the available surface area. Jackery’s rooftop tent maximizes power generation by filling the entire roof with solar cells, and then extending them outward, while also neatly integrating the wiring required to feed the Jackery power station.

The CES concept tent feeds a separate 1.26kWh E1000 Plus power station, capable of 2000W of AC output. That’s enough to run a 1150W portable air conditioner for about one hour, a 60W car fridge for about 45 hours, or a 900W electric cooker for an hour — longer if you add LFP expansion batteries for up to 5kWh of total energy storage. The E1000 Plus can also be charged from the car while driving (7 hours to full) or wall jack (1.7 hours).

Image: Jackery

That insulation had better be good.

It’s unclear who Jackery is partnering with on the tent production. Nevertheless, the concept is fitted with a memory foam mattress, insulation, dimmable lighting with color control, and waterproof fabric with blackout windows. Jackery says that the production version will come “complete with an onboard charging module” (whatever that means) with details to follow sometime in Q4.

It’s too early to call it a trend, but I’m happy to see solar generator specialists like Jackery and Ecoflow (via its partnership with Winnebago) embrace the community of overlanders, vanlifers, and weekend warriors with fully integrated solutions that make it easy to take modern work/life comforts off the grid.

After all, if you’re part of the new hybrid workforce, why work from your crummy urban apartment when you can work from places that inspire you, instead?

Switching to a Flip Phone Helped Me Cut Down on My Smartphone Addiction

Switching to a Flip Phone Helped Me Cut Down on My Smartphone Addiction Was it inconvenient? Yes. Did T9 texting drive me crazy? Definitely. Was it worth doing? Absolutely.

Apple revives old fight with Hey after rejecting new calendar app

Apple revives old fight with Hey after rejecting new calendar app

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The new year was supposed to begin with a brand spanking new calendar app. But roughly 72 hours after the premium email service Hey announced its latest feature — an integrated calendar — co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson received some unwelcome news from Apple: it was rejecting a standalone iOS app for Hey Calendar, because non-paying users couldn’t do anything when they opened the app up.

New users can’t sign up for Hey Calendar directly on the app — Basecamp, which makes Hey, makes users first sign up through a browser. Apple’s App Store rules require most paid services to offer users the ability to pay and sign up through the app, ensuring the company gets up to a 30 percent cut. The controversial rule has a ton of gray areas and carve-outs (i.e. reader apps like Spotify and Kindle get an exception) and is the subject of antitrust fights in multiple countries.

But as Hansson detailed on X and in a subsequent blog post, he found Apple’s rejection insulting for another reason. Close to four years ago, the company rejected Hey’s original iOS app for its email service for the exact same reason. “Apple just called to let us know they’re rejecting the HEY Calendar app from the App Store (in current form). Same bullying tactics as last time: Push delicate rejections to a call with a first-name-only person who’ll softly inform you it’s your wallet or your kneecaps,” wrote Hansson in a post on X.

The outcome of the 2020 fight actually worked out in Hey’s favor. After days of back and forth between Apple’s App Store Review Board and Basecamp, the Hey team agreed to a rather creative solution suggested by Apple exec Phil Schiller. Hey would offer a free option for the iOS app, allowing new users to sign up directly. But the company had a slight twist — users who signed up via the iOS app got a free, temporary randomized email address that worked for 14 days — after which they had to pay to upgrade. Currently, Hey email users can only pay for an account through the browser.

Following the saga with Hey, Apple made a carve-out to its App Store rules that stated that free companion apps to certain types of paid web services were not required to have an in-app payment mechanism. But, as Hansson mentions on X, a calendar app wasn’t mentioned in the list of services that Apple now makes an exception for, which includes VOIP, cloud storage, web hosting — and of course — email.

Since it's clear we're never going to pay them the extortionate 30% ransom, they're back to the bullshit about "the app doesn't do anything when you download it". Despite the fact that after last time, they specifically carved out HEY in App Store Review Guidelines 3.1.3 (f)! pic.twitter.com/GfqBCMgvSw

— DHH (@dhh) January 5, 2024

“After spending 19 days to review our submission, causing us to miss a long-planned January 2nd launch date, Apple rejected our stand-alone free companion app ‘because it doesn’t do anything’. That is because users are required to login with an existing account to use the functionality,” wrote Hansson in the blog post.

As Hansson details in an X post, Hey plans to fight Apple’s decision — though he didn’t specify what route they will be taking. The Verge has reached out to both Hey and Apple for comment.

Max’s live sports add-on will be free for a few more months

Max’s live sports add-on will be free for a few more months

Image: The Verge

Warner Bros. Discovery’s add-on sports tier for Max is going to remain free for a little longer than originally planned, as reported by Deadline. The Bleacher Report Sports add-on was added last October, and while it’s been available at no cost to subscribers so far, it was set to become a paid add-on on February 29th, 2024. However, the switch to a $9.99 monthly fee has been pushed out a few months as Warner Bros. Discovery works out some tech issues.

“The B/R Sports Add-On will continue to be made available to Max subscribers on us for a few more months as we finalize some tech integrations that will ensure a more seamless customer experience with our platform partners,” Max spokesperson Jeff Cusson said in a statement to The Verge.

The B/R Sports tier, which launched on October 5th, includes live games from a bunch of sports leagues, including the MLB (baseball), NBA (basketball), NHL (hockey), and NCAA (college sports). Other streaming services are working on live sports, too. Netflix hosted a live golf tournament in November and is planning to air a live tennis match in March. And Amazon began hosting its streaming-exclusive Thursday Night Football broadcasts this year.

How to configure and use hot corners on macOS

How to configure and use hot corners on macOS

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

There’s a lot to explore in macOS — from file sharing to keyboard remapping — so you’d be forgiven for not having discovered every single feature that Apple’s desktop operating system has to offer. One of the most useful and yet less well known features is something Apple calls hot corners.

Like keyboard shortcuts, hot corners can help you do more in less time on your Mac. The idea is that certain actions are triggered when you move the pointer into one of the corners of the display. Better yet, you’re able to configure these actions so that they correspond to the jobs you’re doing most often on macOS.

You can, for example, quickly create a new note in Apple Notes, or launch the system screen saver, or open up Mission Control. You don’t have to enable all four corners at the same time, either — you can pick and choose which ones are active at any time.

Configuring hot corners

To pick a function for each corner of the display or to disable particular hot corners:

• Open the Apple menu and pick System Settings.
• Open up the Desktop & Dock panel and scroll down to the bottom.
• Click Hot Corners (bottom right) to see the current configuration.
• Select any shortcut from the four drop-down menus.
• Click Done to apply the changes.

You can add any modifier key (Command, Shift, Option, or Control) or modifier key combination to a hot corner. The modifier key options make hot corners a bit more of a deliberate action and reduce the chance of you accidentally activating a hot corner just because the pointer is in a corner of the display.

• Hold down the desired key or key combination while selecting a hot corner function.
• Click Done to apply the changes.

You can choose shortcuts for hot corners in System Settings.

You get 11 options for each hot corner:

• Mission Control
• Application Windows
• Desktop
• Notification Center
• Launchpad
• Quick Note
• Start Screen Saver
• Disable Screen Saver (so it never appears)
• Put Display to Sleep
• Lock Screen
• Or no action at all

Perhaps the two most useful options, from a productivity standpoint, are Mission Control and Launchpad. The former takes you to an overview of the apps that are currently running and all the desktop spaces that you’ve set up, while the latter takes you to the macOS equivalent of the Start menu, where all your apps are accessible.

Using hot corners

One thing you can use a hot corner for is to turn off the screen saver.

Making use of a hot corner is as simple as moving the pointer to the relevant corner of the screen. Sometimes, as is the case with creating a quick note in Notes, an additional click is required to launch the shortcut. If you’ve set up a modifier key, you’ll of course need to have this pressed as well.

So, for example, if you have the top-right corner of your display set to Application Windows, moving the pointer up to that corner will show all the open windows for the current app, making it a little easier to switch between them.

You can drag files between apps using hot corners, too. Say one of your hot corners is set to Launchpad: try dragging an image from a Finder window to the Launchpad hot corner and then on top of the Notes app shortcut. A new note will be created with the image in it. Set a hot corner to Desktop, and you can drag files there, too.

That’s one example of how hot corners can be useful, and there are lots of others. Personally, I find the Lock Screen one most helpful — when I’m stepping away from my desk, a quick swipe of the trackpad locks my MacBook, with no need to press any keys or click through any menus.

Using multiple displays

If you’re using two displays and want the hot corners to only work on the four outer corners, you need to align the displays.

Hot corners can be a little quirky when you’re using multiple displays. Essentially, the four corners will work independently on each screen — which may be fine with you, unless you want them to act as if you were using a single screen. In that case, your displays have to be precisely aligned in System Settings.

To change the alignment of multiple displays:

• Open the Apple menu.
• Select System Settings > Displays.
• Click Arrange, then click and drag the displays to align them. On any adjacent displays that are “snapped” together and exactly aligned, hot corners will be disabled.
• Select Done to confirm.

While hot corners don’t do anything you can’t already do in macOS with a few clicks or button presses, they are really convenient and can make a significant difference in how quickly you can get around the operating system and its features.

SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

SpaceX is suing to bust up federal union protections

Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge

SpaceX is suing the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after the agency accused the Elon Musk-owned company of illegally firing employees. In a lawsuit filed in federal court on Thursday, SpaceX claims the NLRB’s actions are unconstitutional.

On Wednesday, the NLRB filed a complaint alleging SpaceX illegally fired a group of employees for drafting an open letter that criticized Musk’s behavior. The NLRB also claims SpaceX interrogated employees about their involvement with the letter and encouraged employees to quit if they participated in organized activities.

Now, SpaceX is responding with a lawsuit that says the open letter was a “distraction to SpaceX employees around the country.” It claims the NLRB’s proceedings, which involve a hearing in front of an NLRB administrative law judge (ALJ), violate SpaceX’s “constitutional right to trial by jury.” The company also accuses NLRB of violating the Constitution’s rules on the separation of powers, stating the agency’s structure “is miles away from the traditional understanding” of the concept. The NLRB declined to comment.

SpaceX is asking the court to deem the provisions restricting the removal of NLRB members and ALJs unconstitutional, as well as declare that the NLRB’s proceedings deprive SpaceX of its right to trial. It’s also asking the court to pause the current proceedings. A hearing is scheduled in front of an NLRB ALJ on March 5th, 2024, but there’s an option to appeal the decision to the board and then a federal appeals court.