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There are two types of people in this world: those with naked iPhones and those who stick their handset in a case as soon as they unbox it. If you just got a new phone and fall into the latter category, you have an overwhelming range of options to consider. It’s easy to fall down a rabbit hole, researching iPhone cases from companies you’ve never heard of on Amazon. You may be tempted to get one of the cheapest options available, or maybe the one with the cutest pattern, but they might not be the best iPhone cases for your needs. We tested out a number of the latest cases, covers and protectors to see which are actually worth your money.

Spigen Ultra Hybrid Magfit

If you want a basic, protective case that comes at an affordable price, Spigen has you covered. The company’s Ultra Hybrid MagFit cases have clear backs that show off the color of your iPhone and we like their raised bezels that protect the rear camera. The cases also have tactical buttons on the side that make it easy to feel around and adjust your phone’s volume without even looking at it. The overall slim profile of the case allows it to protect your iPhone without adding too much bulk, and it’s MagSafe compatible as well. Also, the Ultra Hybrid case was one of the most secure we tried – to the point where it was almost difficult to extricate the iPhone when we needed to test out a new cover. And while they normally go for around $45, you can often find them on sale for $25 to $30.

Smartish Gripmunk

We’ve recommended Smartish cases in the past for their artistic designs, but we particularly like the Gripmunk series for the latest iPhones. They’re a bit rougher around the edges than Spigen’s cases, literally – Gripmunk covers have textured edges that make them easier to grip and less likely to slip out of your hands, while the backs of the cases show off cute patterns and designs like floral arrays, cosmic scenes and more. There are a few solid-color options too, if you want to go the True Basic route (no shame), and these cases have MagSafe compatibility as well. If you’re a minimalist and don’t like to carry a lot on your person, you could ditch your billfold and spring for Smartish’s Wallet Slayer that has similarly textured edges along with a sleeve on the back that can hold up to three credit cards and a few notes of cash.

Case-Mate Blox

If you’re looking for a bold, eye-catching case that has tons of personality, Case-Mate has a ton of great options to consider. Its iPhone 14 series has glittery cases, floral print covers and everything in between, but the one that stuck out most to me is the Blox line. These cases have squared-off corners that give your iPhone a modern, blocky look. Combine that with their bright neon colors and you’ll likely never have to ask your friends where your phone is again – you won’t miss it. I also appreciate that the Blox cases are fingerprint-resistant, provide protection against 10-foot drops and have built-in magnetics for MagSafe accessory compatibility.

Incipio Organicore

You have many more options today than you did previously if you want an environmentally friendly phone case. Incipio’s Organicore line is one of our favorites because its cases are 100 percent compostable, provide decent protection and the latest models are MagSafe compatible, too. They come in clear and opaque designs, and the latter has a buttery texture that makes the case feel more luxurious than you’d think. Organicore cases will protect your iPhone from drops up to eight feet, and their raised edges will be the first line of defense your phone has against accidental dings and bumps. MagSafe accessories work fine, but we did find that the opaque case wasn’t the grippiest out of the ones we tested. Best to stick to flat wireless chargers like Apple’s, rather than vertical magnetic stands where gravity can take over.

Cyrill Kajuk Mag

Cyrill makes a number of elegant cases and the new Kajuk Mag is no exception. It’s one of the thinnest and lightest cases we tried, but it does have four layers of protection: a soft microfiber lining, a sturdy PC back, TPU bumpers and a vegan leather exterior. Since the company doesn’t boast a certain level of drop protection, this is a good option for those that care more about aesthetics but also want a simple, protective layer standing between their iPhone and hard concrete. As the name suggests, you can use the Kajuk Mag with MagSafe accessories, and it even has an accessory hole built in, for those that want to attach charms, straps and other things.

Peak Design Everyday Case

Peak Design’s Everyday Case not only looks attractive, but it turns your phone into a bunch of different things when you pair it with any of the accessories in the company’s mobile ecosystem. We like its protective rubberized bumper and nylon shell, and its SlimLink connector sits in the middle of the case’s back, waiting for whichever accessory you need that day. The company’s mobile tripod is one of our favorites for taking better photos with your phone, but also propping it up any which way you need. Commuters can opt for the dashboard mount to keep their phone within reach while driving, or the bike mount when you need to follow directions on its screen. If you use your phone for everything and want a case that can support all of those different activities, this one is a good option.

Pelican Shield Kevlar

Maybe you work outdoors, go camping frequently or are simply a bit clumsier than most. Some of the best protection you can get for your iPhone comes from Pelican’s Shield Kevlar case series. They’re admittedly bulky, but that’s how they safeguard your phone from up to 21-foot drops. The 5mm raised bumper provides shock-absorbing safety for the rear camera array as well as the handset as a whole, plus the secure edges and dustproof cover keep all unwanted debris out. Plus, these cases are MagSafe compatible, so you don’t have to sacrifice convenience when opting for as much protection as possible.

OnePlus has revealed when it will formally show off its flagship products for 2023. The Cloud 11 event will take place in New Delhi, India, on February 7th. The company will showcase the OnePlus 11 5G, OnePlus Buds Pro 2 and more.

Along with revealing the event date, OnePlus said it would bring a couple of fan-favorite features back for its next flagship smartphone. The OnePlus 11 will once again feature the company's Alert Slider, which offers an easy way to shift between silent, vibrate and alert modes. You can expect Hasselblad tuning for the camera system as well. Both features were available on the OnePlus Pro 10, but neither were present on the more budget-friendly 10T.

As for the OnePlus Buds Pro 2, the company said they'll offer "a full-bodied, stereo-quality audio experience with crystal clarity." OnePlus said it will have more to reveal beyond the smartphone and earbuds.

OnePlus, which recently promised four years of major OS updates for some of its 2023 phones, will be looking to make a splash with its next batch of flagship devices. Although the company's original ethos was to build competitive smartphones it could sell at a lower price than market leaders, it has edged further into the premium category since then. The OnePlus 10 Pro, for instance, cost $899.

The brand has scheduled the event during a relatively busy time of the year. While CES will be over and done with a few weeks beforehand, OnePlus will debut the flagship products right around the time Samsung is expected to show off the Galaxy S23 lineup. Despite major recent changes for the brand, OnePlus may once again get lost in the shuffle.

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Could the state of Twitter get any worse? Of course it can. While a lot of us were glued to the World Cup final, the social network made major policy changes, deciding to halt any kind of “free promotion” of competing social media sites. Or, at least, it did for a moment.

Twitter announced yesterday it would remove links to Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Post and, er, Truth Social, from accounts whose "main purpose" is to promote content on those platforms. This includes links in Twitter bios and even, it seems, links to YouTube channels and profiles. The company would even restrict the use of third-party aggregators, like Linktree and Link.bio. Funnily enough, if you were willing to pay, you’d be fine. Twitter said it would continue to allow paid promotion for any of the platforms on its new prohibited list.

Twitter began enforcing the policy almost immediately. Yesterday, at 2:17 PM ET, Paul Graham, the founder of startup accelerator Y Combinator – and Silicon Valley royalty – said he was done with Twitter, following the rule change, and told his more than 1.5 million followers to find him on Mastodon. A few hours later, Twitter suspended Graham's account.

But then late last night, the official tweets announcing the link ban were deleted, as was the policy itself from Twitter’s website. So, well, we’re not entirely sure now. Musk also tweeted a poll asking if he should stick around as Twitter boss. At the moment, the answer is no.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Riot Games wants a court to end its ‘League of Legends’ sponsorship deal with FTX

It is owed at least $6.25 million.

Riot

Riot Games has filed a motion with the court overseeing FTX’s bankruptcy case to end the seven-year sponsorship agreement the two companies signed last August. In a brief spotted by crypto critic Molly White, Riot says the exchange still owes half of the 12.5 million it agreed to pay in 2022 for the studio to display FTX branding at LCS events. Riot adds the disgraced firm will owe it another nearly $13 million in 2023.

Continue reading.

Apple has reportedly dropped out of NFL Sunday Ticket negotiations

The new frontrunners are Amazon and Google.

In 2021, Apple was the frontrunner to secure streaming rights to the NFL’s Sunday Ticket game coverage. Now, a year later, the company has reportedly dropped out of negotiations. With Disney bowing out of the negotiations as well, the talks have become a two-horse race between Amazon and Google. Amazon’s Prime Video is already the exclusive home of Thursday Night Football for the next decade. Last year, The Athletic reported the NFL was asking for more than $2 billion per year for Sunday Ticket rights, at least $500 million more than DirecTV had been paying to air Sunday games.

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A Horizon multiplayer game is on the way

Guerrilla is working on more ‘epic solo adventures for Aloy,’ too.

A VR spinoff and Horizon Forbidden West expansion won’t be the last we see of Guerrilla Games’ Horizon universe. The studio has at least two more games in the works for the PlayStation franchise, including a multiplayer title. Guerrilla made the announcement in a recruitment tweet. Along with working on more “epic solo adventures for Aloy,” the star of the first two games, the studio has a separate team to create an “online project set in Horizon’s universe.” It added that the latter will feature new characters and a “unique stylized look.”

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Fujifilm X-H2 camera review

A perfect blend of speed, resolution and video power.

Engadget

Fujifilm’s 40-megapixel X-H2 is the highest-resolution APS-C camera yet and the first with 8K video. It has a good balance between resolution and speed, with autofocus that’s good but not quite up to par with Canon and Sony. It has plenty of features for video, and the only drawback is rolling shutter, but even that’s not as bad as other rival APS-C cameras. Read on for our full review.

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Yesterday Elon Musk launched another one of his famous Twitter policy polls, this time putting his own leadership on the line. "Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll," he tweeted. The poll just ended and 57.5 percent of users voted "Yes," compared to 42.5 percent who voted no (with 17,502,391 votes) — a decisive 15-point margin.

It remains to be seen if (and how, and when) Musk will abide by his poll, as he has yet to issue any comment about the results. Shortly after publishing the vote (and when it was already tilting toward "Yes"), he tweeted "as the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it." During the poll, Musk was seen at the World Cup in Qatar with former White House adviser Jared Kushner, live-tweeting the final between France and Argentina.

The vote follows a flurry of activity on Twitter. Yesterday, the social media site announced a rule change prohibiting users from linking to competing platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter rival Mastodon. That resulted in the ban of multiple users including Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, an early supporter of Musk's Twitter acquisition.  

A massive backlash ensued, and shortly afterwards, Twitter deleted a blog post that had outlined the new policy. In yet another poll yesterday, @TwitterSafety asked users whether it should "have a policy preventing the creation of or use of existing accounts for the main purpose of advertising other social media platforms." The "No" votes currently command a 87 percent share from 224,365 users with 14 hours remaining.

Google Search recorded the highest traffic in its 25-year history during the FIFA World Cup yesterday, CEO Sundar Pichai tweeted. Google effectively became an information hub for the final, a strong contender for the best in FIFA men's history. With records already smashed for group stage and Round of 16 matches, it's also likely to be the most watched final in history once figures are released. 

With updated Search features released ahead of the World Cup, Google made it easier for users to keep up with the action. Searching "World Cup" showed a dedicated section at the top with a list of upcoming matches, for instance, including dates and local times. You could also set up notifications on mobile for specific teams by tapping the bell icon and choosing the squad you wanted to follow.

It was also aided by the nail-biting action and strong storylines. Those include Lionel Messi finally getting his World Cup, Kylian Mbappe's legendary performance, France's late second-half comeback, an incredible extra time with two goals scored and a nerve-wracking shootout. All of that was capped by the celebrations and outpouring of emotions by players and fans alike. 

Sonos has never used WiFi 6 in its products, but a speaker with that feature has just passed through the FCC, Zatz Not Funny! has reported. Dubbed S39, it also offers full Bluetooth that could be used for audio streaming on top of Bluetooth LE normally used for WiFi pairing. Another product, the S41, reportedly appeared on a regulatory filing in Canada. 

The S39 model could be a successor to the Sonos One second-generation speaker released back in 2019. Both may also be the first products in a rumored "Optimo" lineup of high-end speakers reported by The Verge earlier this year. The Optimo 2 speaker (possibly a replacement for the Sonos Five) is supposed to support both WiFi and Bluetooth streaming, so that report lines up with the FCC filing. It could also have a USB-C wired line-in port, making it one of the few Sonos speakers with that feature. 

WiFi 6 and 6E could allow for more dependable streaming, particularly when using multiple speakers. Bluetooth, meanwhile, let you play music directly from a smartphone or other device. So far, Bluetooth streaming has only been present on Sonos' portable speakers. It's all still speculation until the products arrive, but given the FCC approvals, they should be coming soon. 

YouTube has removed PornHub's official channel over what it called "multiple violations" of its community guidelines, Variety has reported. Pornhub's YouTube channel first launched in 2014 and had 900,000 subscribers, but it no longer appears in YouTube search and its URL now shows a 404 error. 

YouTube said that Pornhub violated its policy against linking to sites that host content not allowed on YouTube. "Upon review, we terminated the channel Pornhub Official following multiple violations of our community guidelines," a spokesperson said. "We enforce our policies equally for everyone, and channels that repeatedly violate or are dedicated to violative content are terminated."

Pornhub's parent MindGeek said that it "vehemently denied" YouTubes claims that it linked out to porn sites. "Pornhub maintains the absolute best trust and safety measures on the internet and takes special care to ensure it does not violate any of YouTube’s Community Guidelines," a spokesperson said in a statement. "Unfortunately, this is just the latest example of discrimination against those in the adult industry."

On Friday, the anti-pornography group National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) wrote on its blog that it had flagged content that it believed violated YouTube policies. "After review, YouTube alerted NCOSE that they had terminated the channel for violations of their Community Guidelines." MindGeek, meanwhile, said that performers and sex workers are marginalized groups and called YouTube's "haphazard and arbitrary enforcement... dangerous and harmful." 

Mastercard and Visa cut off payments to Pornhub in 2020, with Mastercard saying at the time that it found illegal content on the site. A federal judge refused to remove Visa from a lawsuit alleging that it aided MindGeek in monetizing child pornography. In September, Instagram banned Pornhub permanently, also citing violations of community guidelines. 

The Kia EV6 is an outstanding EV based on the Hyundai Motor Group's E-GMP architecture. One of the more impressive elements of the crossover is that it charges at 240kW at compatible DC fast charging stations. That’s quicker than offerings from Mercedes, Volkswagen, BMW and Ford, and it means less time at a station and more time on the road.

Now, Kia could have allowed quick charging to continue to be the electric crossover’s speediest feature. Instead, it decided to build something rather bonkers; an EV6 with a zero-to-60 time of 3.4 seconds, 576 horsepower, and 545 pound-feet of torque. It’s a quick electric crossover that in tests, outran a Lamborghini and Ferrari.

To get the full experience of the 2023 EV6 GT, Kia invited us to Las Vegas, Nevada where we drove the vehicle on twisty roads, a track, and a drag strip. Oh, and we also got a chance to try out the EV’s new Drift mode. Again, this is all in a Kia.

Check out the video below to see how well the vehicle performed both in the real world and on the track.

The head of Profeco, Mexico’s consumer protection watchdog, has promised to sue Ticketmaster following a ticketing snafu in the country’s capital, reports The New York Times. On the weekend of December 9th, Puerto Rican reggaeton star Bad Bunny was scheduled to play two soldout shows in Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca, the largest stadium in Latin America. The Friday night date saw thousands of fans denied entry to the venue after they were told by Estadio Azteca staff the tickets they bought directly from Ticketmaster were fake.

Profeco accused the company of overselling tickets. According to the agency, more than 1,600 ticket holders were denied entry on the first night, and another 110 on the following evening. “Ticketmaster claimed they were counterfeit, but they were all issued by them,” Profeco head Ricardo Sheffield told local news outlets. Ticketmaster has agreed to refund all affected fans the full price of their ticket, plus a 20 percent compensation fee. Profeco is preparing to file a class-action lawsuit against the company. Ticketmaster Mexico could also be fined up to 10 percent of its total sales in 2021. “As we are a fiscal authority, if they don’t want to pay of their own will, we will seize their accounts then, and they will pay because they have to,” Sheffield said.

In a statement Ticketmaster posted to Twitter this week, the company denied the claim it oversold tickets. It blamed the event on demand for Bad Bunny tickets – saying more than 4.5 million people tried to purchase just 120,000 stubs – and scalpers who sold fake tickets. “On Friday, an unprecedented number of false tickets, not bought through our official channels, were presented at the gates," the company said, according to an Associated Press translation. “The situation, in addition to confusion among access control personnel, caused temporary interruptions in the ticket reading system, which unfortunately momentarily impeded recognition of legitimate tickets.”

In November, Democratic lawmakers, including House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, began calling for the break up of Ticketmaster after the company botched sales of Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets. “Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, its merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in,” Ocasio-Cortez said last month. The US Department of Justice reportedly opened an antitrust investigation into Ticketmaster parent company LiveNation before the Swift fiasco. The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumers recently announced it would hold a hearing on the company’s recent failures.