Illustration: The Verge Apple will soon bring its powerful internal search engine to the App Store and other apps, as Mark Gurman reports in this week’s Power On newsletter for Bloomberg. Apple debuted upgrades to its Spotlight search feature in iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, letting users search there for web results, details from apps, documents, and much more.According to the newsletter, former Google executive John Giannandrea’s search team is working to bake the internally-named “Pegasus” search engine more deeply into iOS and macOS and could even use generative AI tools to enhance it further. Last year Apple also launched Business Connect, a tool that helped strengthen its information database with details about businesses’ hours and locations in a way that could... Continue reading…

The Surface Pro 8 remains one of the best Windows tablets on the market despite being a couple of years old at this point. It still performs well and has a fantastic display, but one of its big claims to fame is that it's a tablet and a laptop, yet the keyboard isn't included in the box. If you want to use the Surface Pro 8 as a laptop, you'll need to buy that keyboard separately.

A leaked Pixel 8 “Switch to Pixel” ad posted to X by Arséne Lupin highlights Google’s AI features, including Best Take, which lets you swap faces into an image from other pictures (via 9to5Google). Google’s Pixel event is just around the corner on October 4th, but there’s seemingly very little we don’t already know about the phone, considering the steady stream of leaks.The ad kicks off highlighting the process for transferring data to a Pixel 8, but spends most of its time on the AI features of the phone — some new, like Best Take, and some old, like Magic Eraser:Switch to Pixel - Pixel 8 (Pro) pic.twitter.com/hGfQbFDpug— Arsène Lupin (@MysteryLupin) September 30, 20239to5Google also points to a leak from Kamila Wojciechowska,... Continue reading…

Taking a screenshot is one of the essential features that many users rely on when using their devices. While this functionality is pretty straightforward on most recent phones, utilizing it on macOS Sonoma can be more tricky. Though, worry not, because once you get the hang of it, you likely won't struggle using it.

Getting the latest iPhone model every year might not be as great for your wallet as you might hope. Even though Apple has managed to keep the same pricing strategy, coughing up $800 or more for a new device every 12 months isn’t for everybody. Indeed, you can trade in your current iPhone to get exciting discounts and a more budget-friendly price tag, but do you really need to trade in your current device to get a new model of the iPhone 15 lineup?

Image: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 8, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, first of all, hi, hello, welcome, and second of all, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve spent an alarming amount of my free time playing EA Sports FC 24, the new soccer game that just released in full on Friday. I’ve also been reading about Apple’s plans to change the sports TV world, the truly unhinged Survivor casting process, and Sam Altman’s plan to either save the world or end it. I’ve been watching Special Ops: Lioness, listening to NSYNC’s new song on repeat, and taking copious notes on Kashmir Hill’s excellent Longform interview.I also have for you a new VR / AR / MR... Continue reading…

Courtesy of Cinema Guild Recently, we’ve been gifted two new works by Korean auteur Hong Sangsoo each year. He loves a small movie, usually comfortably under the 90-minute mark, and a scope that might encompass a novella or even a short story. I personally find them kind of hit or miss. Not to say Hong is inconsistent. In fact, it is remarkable how he can keep making the same kind of movie over and over. Even within the self-imposed constraints of Hong’s manner, there is wild variance in what he puts out. In that sense, his new movies are fitting — though unessential — additions to his prolific filmography.One of this year’s, In Our Day, is fairly standard Hong: low stakes, talky, and cast with familiar actors (if you think Wes Anderson likes recurring players,... Continue reading…

The Pixel Watch 2 is a golden opportunity for Google to prove it’s serious about wearables. | Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge After I reviewed the Pixel Watch last year, skeptics kept asking me the same questions over and over again: Do you think Google’s actually going to keep this thing going? Do you think it’s going to ax the Pixel Watch if it doesn’t sell? These are fair questions to ask. Despite being among the first to the wearable scene in 2014, it let Android Wear and then Wear OS languish for years. Plus, Google’s graveyard of abandoned projects is notoriously vast. While I was pretty confident we’d see a Pixel Watch 2, I didn’t think the Pixel Watch — a better-than-expected debut with some very first-gen flaws — would succeed to the degree it did. During Q4 2022 (aka the holiday season), Google leapfrogged Samsung to become the No. 2 bestselling... Continue reading…

The new Model Y for China looks a lot like the old one. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge Tesla's China arm announced in a WeChat post Sunday morning that it released a new Model Y with design and performance tweaks that keeps the same starting price as before (via Reuters). The new car follows the company’s release of the revamped "Highland" Model 3 in China, which also hit Europe early last month.According to Tesla’s Chinese website, the Model Y now has a 0–100km/h time of 5.9 seconds, which Bloomberg notes in a report is slightly faster than before. The car gets new wheels and an ambient LED lighting strip in the dash, like the refreshed Model 3. Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge If you squint, you can see the new LED strip along the front. The car starts at 263,900 yuan (about $37,000), and... Continue reading…

If you have thought about picking up a dongle over the last several years to enable wireless streaming on your non-smart HDTV, there is an excellent chance you have come across Chromecast. It is essentially a lineup of devices by Google that allows you to stream media to your TV or AV receiver wirelessly. But the underlying Chromecast technology is not just limited to the Google dongles. In fact, you can find it in televisions, speakers, and AV receivers. And it can do far more than just stream online content.

Roblox is an incredibly popular online game. If you recently switched to a Chromebook, you might be looking forward to Roblox on your new laptop. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a native ChromeOS app. Luckily, like so many other games, you can use Android app support to enjoy it on your new Chromebook, provided the feature is enabled and not turned off by a school or someone managing your Chromebook. For those with older Chromebooks, you can also play Roblox through the web browser on a third-party website, as long as it is not blocked.

The limits of myth-making are apparent in Walter Isaacson’s new biography. | Illustration by William Joel / The Verge The trouble began days before the biography was even published.CNN had a story summarizing an excerpt of Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk that claimed Musk had shut down SpaceX’s satellite network, Starlink, to prevent a “Ukrainian sneak attack” on the Russian navy. The Washington Post followed it up, publishing the excerpt where Isaacson claimed Musk had essentially shut down a military offensive on a personal whim.This reporting did not pass the smell test to me, and I said so at the time; I wondered about the sourcing. One of the things that anyone covering Elon Musk for long enough has to reckon with is that he loves to tell hilarious lies. For instance:“Funding secured.” Remember when Elon Musk pretended he was going to take Tesla... Continue reading…