Technology

Apple will launch its online store in India on September 23rd, giving customers in India a way to buy Apple products directly from the company for the first time. “We’re proud to be expanding in India and want to do all we can to support our customers and their communities,” said Apple’s senior vice president of retail and people Deirdre O’Brien said in a statement. “We know our users are relying on technology to stay connected, engage in learning, and tap into their creativity, and by bringing the Apple Store online to India, we are offering our customers the very best of Apple at this important time.” We know how important it is for our customers to stay in touch with those they love and the world around them. We can’t wait to connect with our customers and expand support in India with t...

If you’re an organization junkie and an iPhone user, then iOS 14 has provided you with a new tool: the App Library, which organizes your apps in labeled groups to make them easier to find. In fact, all your current apps can now be found there, and any apps you download in the future will be placed there as well. (You can decide whether you want the apps to also be visible on your home screen; we’ll tell you how later in this article.) This new feature can be very useful, especially if you tend to download a lot of apps. Automatic groupings The App Library appears as a separate page on your home screen. After you’ve updated to iOS 14, just keep swiping left; the App Library will be the last page you hit. It automatically organizes your apps into folders that are labeled with a variety of ca...

OnePlus released the OnePlus Buds, its $79 true wireless earbuds, back in July. While they have great battery and an affordable price, if you used them with a non-OnePlus phone, you weren’t able to manage some settings or get firmware updates. That should change in the future, though, as a OnePlus Buds app will be coming to other Android devices, according to a Q&A on OnePlus’ Chinese website (via 9to5Google). The Q&A doesn’t give a timeline as to when we can expect to see that app on other phones, and OnePlus didn’t reply to a question about when the app might be released more broadly. If you want, you can already check out the OnePlus Buds app on Google’s Play Store, but the app’s description says it can only be installed on OnePlus devices. In his review of the OnePlus Buds, my ...

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today that individuals who don’t have coronavirus symptoms should get tested, reversing guidance that stirred controversy last month. The reversal follows a report published yesterday by The New York Times which revealed that the initial guidance was pushed by non-scientists in the Trump administration against the objections of public health officials and experts. The new guidance, issued on the CDC’s website on Friday, now clarifies that individuals should seek a COVID-19 test if they feel they’ve been in close contact with those who tested positive for the virus, regardless of whether they’re displaying symptoms. “Due to the significance of asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission, this guidance further reinforces the need to te...

It seemed a little too good to be true the other night when Amazon successfully processed a bunch of PlayStation 5 preorders after other retailers dropped the ball spectacularly. And, well, maybe it was. Today, the company has sent out an email to many who preordered a PS5 — both the regular and Digital Edition consoles — advising that shipments might not arrive in time for the November 12th release date. “We’re contacting you about your order of PlayStation 5 to let you know in advance that you may not receive this item on the day it is released due to high demand,” the email reads. “We’ll make every effort to get the item to you as soon as possible once released.” This is probably a situation where not even Amazon yet knows exactly how many PlayStation 5 units it will be receiving, so th...

The fall tech season is in full swing, with Apple announcing new Watches and iPads, Sony announcing pricing for the PlayStation 5, and Facebook revealing a sequel to its standalone Oculus headset. The week on The Vergecast, Verge health reporter Nicole Wetsman joins co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn to discuss the newly announced Apple Watch Series 6 and its blood oxygen monitoring feature. Nicole explains how the feature works, how accurate it might be, and what purpose a blood oxygen meter might serve on a wrist-worn gadget. Verge news editor Chaim Gartenberg also joins the show to talk about the various other announcements from this week, including Apple’s new iPad Air, Apple’s new subscription bundle, the PS5’s $499 price tag, and what happened at Facebook and Oculus’ big AR / VR ev...

We might have just gotten our best look yet at the long-rumored new Chromecast and its dedicated remote, thanks to what appear to be leaked marketing renders posted by WinFuture. We already know Google plans to launch hardware, including a new Chromecast, at its September 30th event, so these renders could be showing off a product Google is very close to revealing. The look of the new Chromecast shouldn’t be much of a surprise if you’ve been following other leaks; it appears to be a plastic oval HDMI dongle that’s slightly larger than the circular Chromecast devices we’re used to. But what’s more interesting from these renders is the remote control. We’ve already seen leaks of that, and while these new renders aren’t drastically different, they do reveal a revised button layout, including ...

Apple’s new Apple One bundle, which gives customers an assortment of Apple-owned services for a monthly fee, is likely to help out subscriptions for all of its offerings, but few need it as much as TV Plus. Apple has been relatively quiet about anything related to TV Plus’ metrics in the almost year it’s been out. There are no subscriber numbers, no big displays of bragging about The Morning Show or Ted Lasso’s viewership figures. (In fairness to Apple, the company hasn’t given an update on Apple Music subscribers since June 2019, and while CEO Tim Cook did share this year that Apple News has 125 million subscribers, he chose not to disclose how many people signed up for $10 subscription version.) All that exists is reports from third-party analytics firms and articles from Bloomberg — one...

Apple’s iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 launched this week, introducing a ton of new features to the company’s smartphones and tablets — including the option to change your default browser and default email apps to services like Chrome or Outlook to handle links by default instead of through Apple’s native Safari and Mail apps. Here’s a running list of available third-party browsers on iOS 14. As for email, the available options are slightly slimmer right now. Third-party developers will need to update their apps before they can be selected as a default option on iOS 14. Due to the sensitive information in email communication, Apple has told developers that email apps, because they’re a critical avenue for communication, “must meet specific functional criteria aimed at ensuring private and accurate a...

Apple has changed the rules. One month after suggesting its iOS App Store guidelines would bar cloud gaming services like Google Stadia and Microsoft xCloud from appearing on an iPhone or iPad, the company has now overhauled those rules, telling journalists last Friday that Google and Microsoft’s streaming games are actually welcome after all. But if you know how cloud game services operate, and then look at Apple’s actual written rules, you’ll see that’s only technically true. If I understand correctly, the reality is one of two things: Either 1) Apple is asking Microsoft, Google and others to turn their streaming game services into an entirely new category of standalone app which guarantees Apple a profit — a kind of app that’s rarely existed on iOS before, and one that Apple itself call...

It’s difficult to recommend that anyone in the West go buy a Huawei phone right now, since the Chinese tech giant is forbidden from shipping Google apps and services on its products. Their technical chops, however, should be in no doubt. I reviewed the flagship P40 Pro phone earlier this year and came away very impressed with the screen, camera, performance, and battery life — basically everything but the software, which is largely out of Huawei’s hands. More recently, I’ve been testing the P40 Pro Plus, the higher-end version of the P40 Pro. Buying recommendations aside, it’s worth taking a look at because of its truly unique camera. Telephoto lenses are getting more commonplace on phones, but there aren’t any others that can match up to this one. The P40 Pro Plus is essentially indisting...

There are a couple of questions I ask myself before I spend money on a game. How long is it? Can my PC run it? And if there’s a dog in it, can I pet it? In the case of Humble Bundle’s latest collection of games the answer to the last question is a resounding “Yes!” The store has partnered with the Twitter account “Can You Pet the Dog?” for its latest bundle, which includes a total of eight games which are guaranteed to include a least one virtual dog, ripe for the petting. By now you almost certainly know what the deal is with Humble Bundles, but the standard pay-what-you-want rules apply. You can pay a minimum price of $1 to unlock four of the bundle’s games (Scribblenauts Unlimited, Beyond Eyes, Dog Sled Saga, and Bulb Boy), pay more than the average price (currently $4.75) to add Shenmu...