PC makers weren't the only ones who dealt with a grim 2022. Canalys estimates that smartphone shipments tanked 11 percent year-over-year, making it worst annual performance in a decade. The fourth quarter was worse — shipments fell 17 percent compared to the end of 2021. That was also the worst fourth quarter of the past 10 years, according to analysts.
Most industry heavyweights had a tough time, too. Apple and Samsung were the only two major brands to gain market share in 2022, growing to 19 and 22 percent respectively. Chinese rivals Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo all shrank. It won't surprise you to hear that Apple overtook Samsung in the last quarter (the iPhone 14 family was brand new, while the Galaxy S22 was relatively old). However, it was still a record high — Apple claimed 25 percent of the market in the fall where Samsung had 'just' 20 percent. Higher-end brands held steady, in other words.
You might already know why the market went south. The combination of a tough economy and supply problems hurt demand and created shortages. Even if you could afford your dream smartphone, you might have had a difficult time finding it. That led companies to run sales and otherwise go to great lengths to entice customers and clear out unsold stock.
Don't expect 2023 to be much better. Canalys predicts that the smartphone space might only grow slightly at best. China's re-opening is poised to help, but researchers only believe the effect will be noticeable toward the second half of the year. If that proves true, phone makers may still end up fighting for your attention with aggressive promos.
DoorDash and Starbucks plan to expand their delivery partnership to all 50 US states by March this year, the companies announced Tuesday. Following a pilot that began last year in Atlanta, Houston and Sacramento (and later expanded to Seattle, Portland and New York City), people in North California, Texas, Georgia and Florida can now turn to DoorDash when they want a Starbucks coffee delivered to them.
According to Starbucks, it will offer 95 percent of the items found on in-store menus through DoorDash. You can also customize your order just like when you order in person. The app allows you to specify whether you want syrup in your drink, your milk preference and your choice of expresso roast. DoorDash also promises prompt delivery of coffee orders but stops short of a specific guarantee. DashPass customers won’t need to pay additional delivery fees to get their pumpkin spice latte orders to their door. For everyone else, DoorDash’s standard delivery and service fees apply.
Uber Eats has offered nationwide delivery of Starbucks orders since 2019, making the timing of the DoorDash expansion somewhat puzzling. By all accounts, the era of massive growth delivery firms saw during the first two years of the pandemic has come to an end. Between the easing of lockdown restrictions in many jurisdictions and cost of living increases, fewer people are using delivery apps.
You'd think that, being the oldest name in the smart lighting world, Philips would have the best app on the market. More than a decade of iterative improvements and a mature hardware world would see the app rise proudly above its competitors. Sadly for me, and every other Hue user, the company seems to have fallen asleep behind the wheel.
(Yes: I know that Philips Lighting rebranded itself as Signify, but let’s not confuse matters here.)
I picked up a Hue starter kit and some additional Lux bulbs back in 2013, and was very impressed with the setup for at least ten minutes. It very quickly became one of those gadgets that only really got used to show the power of your smart home to visitors. And they rather quickly tired of my ability to change my living room lights from white to purple, and back again. In fact, I mostly used the bulbs as glorified dimmer switches, which wasn’t enough to justify the high cost of the initial investment.
At some point, the app started insisting I replace the v1 (round) Bridge for the v2 (square) model. And I bristled, already feeling aggrieved that Hue was all mouth and no trousers, I resented having to pay when the existing system worked perfectly well. Especially since I could have used that money to buy more Hue bulbs and further lock myself into Philips’ ecosystem.
No tears were shed when the Bridge eventually got smashed by one (or both) of my kids when I was out of the room. I decided, in a tiny flurry of COVID-19 lockdown-induced Marie Kondo-ing, that I’d toss the box into the trash and be done with it. After all, it was broken, and changing the color of my bulbs did not spark the joy I was expecting, not to mention the fact that Philips loves to charge a lot of cash to sync your lighting to a movie playing on your TV.
Last month, my wife asked me why we weren't able to use Hue any more, and I explained the situation. She asked how much it would cost to fix it, and found a sealed, unused, second generation Bridge available on Facebook Marketplace for half the price at retail. So we snapped it up, obviously making the usual security checks about buying second hand IoT gear before plugging it into our network.
That was, however, when the troubles began, since you can’t just sign in to your existing Hue account, hook it up to the new Bridge, and be done. Nobody at Philips seems to have imagined that it might be worthwhile building out the ability to revive an account tied to a dead bridge. In fact, there’s no way to connect anything without a fresh login, and the bulbs themselves are tied to the old one. The app also doesn’t provide any way to hard reset a bulb, or in fact do anything beyond leave you staring at a splash screen.
For about half an hour, I did wonder if I’d just wasted some cash on a new Bridge but never to get things working again. I felt a frustration, a powerlessness, the sort that comes when you’re locked and bolted out of a building at 2am in an unfamiliar city and your phone’s out of charge. My login wouldn’t work, because my bridge wasn’t connected to the internet. A new login won’t even acknowledge the presence of the expensive hardware all over my house. My hands got very itchy.
This is the kicker: I’m not the first person to learn how bad Philips’ software development is, because there’s a whole army of third-party Hue apps out there. Much in the same way that charity is an indictment on behalf of the state, the depth and breadth of Hue apps available is a massive critique on Philips’ lackluster app development. You’re paid to do this, and there’s no available function in the app to be able to fix what could be a fairly common problem.
I opted to use Hue Lights, one of many independent apps that offered the ability to hard reset a bulb. All I had to do was bring each bulb close to the bridge (you’ll need a lamp handy), turn it on, and hard reset each unit individually. Then I could reconnect them to the new bridge and, as if by magic, could then start using them with the official Hue app. Not that, I’ll be honest, I really want to. Because this third-party, very simple app has more power than the official Philips app and it’s easier to use. If you haven’t tried it, I heartily recommend that you do. At least until Philips gets its act together.
Meta's Oversight Board has overruled the company's takedowns of two Instagram posts showing a transgender and non-binary couple with bare chests and covered nipples. One of the images was posted in 2021 and the other last year. In the captions, the couple discussed trans healthcare. The posts noted that one of them planned to undergo gender-affirming surgery to create a flatter chest and that the duo was fundraising to pay for the procedure.
However, Meta took down the posts for violating its rules on sexual solicitation. The Oversight Board says that moderators reviewed the images multiple times after user reports and alerts from automated systems. The couple appealed Meta's decisions to the company and the Oversight Board. Meta determined that removing the posts was the incorrect call and restored them, but the board looked into the dual cases all the same.
The Oversight Board overruled Meta's original takedown decisions. It determined that the removal of the images was not in line with the company's "community standards, values or human rights responsibilities" and that the cases underline core issues with Meta's policies.
The board wrote that Meta's directives to moderators on when to remove posts under the sexual solicitation policy is "far broader than the stated rationale for the policy or the publicly available guidance." It claimed the discrepancy causes confusion for moderators and users. Meta itself has noted that this approach has led to content being incorrectly removed.
In addition, the board called out the inherently restrictive binary perspective of the adult nudity and sexual activity community standard. It notes that the rules, as things stand, generally don't allow Meta's users to post images of female nipples, though there are exceptions for things like breastfeeding and gender confirmation surgery.
"Such an approach makes it unclear how the rules apply to intersex, non-binary and transgender people, and requires reviewers to make rapid and subjective assessments of sex and gender, which is not practical when moderating content at scale," the board wrote. It called the current rules "confusing" and noted that the extensive exceptions (which also allow for images related to protests and breast cancer awareness) "often convoluted and poorly defined." As such, the board claimed, the policy is not workable in practice.
"The board finds that Meta’s policies on adult nudity result in greater barriers to expression for women, trans and gender non-binary people on its platforms," an Oversight Board blog post reads. "For example, they have a severe impact in contexts where women may traditionally go bare-chested, and people who identify as LGBTQI+ can be disproportionately affected, as these cases show. Meta’s automated systems identified the content multiple times, despite it not violating Meta’s policies. Meta should seek to develop and implement policies that address all these concerns."
The board recommended that the company modify its rules on adult nudity and sexual activity to include "clear, objective, rights-respecting criteria" so that everyone is "treated in a manner consistent with international human rights standards, without discrimination on the basis of sex or gender." It urged Meta to review the policy to determine if it protects users against the non-consensual sharing of images and whether other rules need to be tightened on that front. Moreover, it called on Meta to align its guidance to moderators with the public rules on sexual solicitation to minimize errors in enforcing the policy.
“We welcome the board’s decision in this case. We had reinstated this content prior to the decision, recognizing that it should not have been taken down," a Meta spokesperson told Engadget. "We are constantly evaluating our policies to help make our platforms safer for everyone. We know more can be done to support the LGBTQ+ community, and that means working with experts and LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations on a range of issues and product improvements.”
In public comments on the case (PDF), several people criticized Meta for the original decisions, claiming that there was nothing sexually explicit about the images. One user called on Meta to bring in LGBTQIA+ human rights specialists and establish policies to protect trans, non-binary and other LGBTQIA people from harassment and unfair censorship. Another called out Instagram for a double standard, accusing the platform of permitting images in which nipples are covered only by body tape while removing others where they're covered by pasties (patches that cover nipples and areolae).
One person noted that the couple "have helped me accept myself and help me understand things about myself," noting that content shared on the account is "very educational and useful." The comment added that "there is nothing sexual about their nudity and them sharing this type of picture is not about being nude and being provocative."
When Arturia launched the MiniFreak, it also promised that a plugin version, MiniFreak V would also be available soon. Originally it was only available to those who purchased a hardware MiniFreak, but now it's being offered to anyone who wants access to the dual digital sound engines and 22 oscillator modes without eating up any more physical space in their studio.
MiniFreak V brings all of the features of the hardware synth to your computer, save for the analog filters. Instead the V version gets modeled analog filters. Arturia has long history of delivering excellent emulations of analog hardware, so this isn't a cause for concern. The software version even has the same limitations, like six-voice polyphony. So if you've been tempted by the MiniFreak, but haven't pulled the trigger yet, this is an excellent way to take it for a test drive.
You still get a robust mod matrix, customizable LFO curves, two LFOs per voice, four lanes of modulation sequencing, a 64-step sequencer and 10 effects with three slots. It doesn't quite have the raw power of Arturia's Pigments, but it does have a number of features that lacks — most notably those nearly two dozen oscillator modes.
In addition to putting the power of the MiniFreak in your DAW, the V version can also sync with the hardware instrument. So you can control it straight from your computer. Of course that's been available to owners of the synth for a while now, but it's just icing on the cake if you pickup the VST now and decide to snag the real deal down the road.
The UI largely mimics the physical instrument, down to the orange highlights and patterned mod / pitch strips to the left of the keyboard. It does offer a lot more visual feedback, however, including animated wave shapes for the oscillators, LFOs and envelopes. Arturia's MiniFreak V is available now for $149 or bundled with V Collection 9 for free.
If you enjoyed HBO's take on The Last of Us, you're far from alone. WarnerMedia has revealed that the video game adaptation racked up 4.7 million viewers on conventional and streaming TV for its January 15th premiere, making it HBO's third largest debut of the streaming era. Only the Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon rated higher with a crowd topping 9.9 million, and Boardwalk Empire's 4.81 million-viewer launch from 2010 (when HBO Go arrived) was only slightly stronger.
The Last of Us "nearly doubled" the audience for Euphoria's season two opener, WarnerMedia says. While it's not yet clear how well the game series will fare in the long term, the company notes that Sunday night viewing for an HBO show tends to account for 20 to 40 percent of the total gross viewership per episode.
The strong initial performance isn't surprising. On top of the long hype campaign, The Last of Us has well-known names (including Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey and Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin) as well as the benefit of an established fan base from Naughty Dog's game franchise. Include HBO Max availability and a good early critical response and there were many people willing to tune in.
It's too soon to say if The Last of Us will be the most popular game-based TV series to date. It has to compete with successes like Netflix's League of Legends series Arcane, among others. However, the initial viewing data suggests this bet on a lavish production has paid off for everyone involved. In that light, it's easy to see why Sony was willing to commit to TV shows for God of War and Horizon. As with rival shows like Halo, this is a chance to expand interest in a franchise to many more people.
There are two points I want you to take away from this article. The first: An overwhelming majority of people do not need to pay $300 for a keyboard. Easy enough. But I’m about to wax poetic about one particular $300 keyboard that has made my life better, and I don’t want it to be mistaken for a universal endorsement. There are several perfectly competent keyboards available for a tenth of this price, and many excellent models – some would even say “premium” – are available for as little as $100. You have to be a particularly warped kind of consumer, one who has invested too much time in forums populated by eternally unsatisfied keyboard enthusiasts, to take this sort of plunge.
And yet!
I am incredibly privileged to be able to test and write about tech products for a living, but it’s exactly those two things – using a bunch of products, and doing a bunch of writing – that led me to buy Topre’s Realforce R2 PFU keyboard a few years back. I’ve tested several keyboards for work over the years, from compact and mobile-focused options to all sorts of mechanical models. Many of these were great for the right person, but none of them totally fit my needs as someone who has to spend most of the week typing and editing. Some had keys that didn’t travel enough, some were too fast, some were too loud – either in noise and RGB-addled design – some felt too slick to the touch.
Taste in keyboard feel is fully subjective, but, as with food or art, the more you obsess over it, the more in tune with your preferences you become. Topre keyboards have had something of a cult following for a long time now, so after not totally meshing with the various mechanical (Cherry, Kailh, Razer, Logitech, et al.) and non-mechanical keyboards I had used over the years, I dipped into my savings and talked myself into believing I’d be converted as well. There are various Realforce models – plus a handful of keyboards that use Topre switches but aren’t sold by the Japanese firm itself – but, as someone who uses the number pad, I decided to go all the way with the full-size R2 PFU.
You don’t have to know how a Topre keyboard works to enjoy one, but I’ll try to explain. For most, mechanical keyboards sit at the top of the keyboard pleasure food chain, with membrane or rubber dome keyboards all the way at the bottom. Topre’s electrostatic capacitive switches exist kind of between the two, but really in their own realm off to the side. They do use a rubber dome, but not in the same, simple way as many cheaper/laptop keyboards. They also don’t work like mechanical switches, which slide particularly-shaped pieces of plastic and metal against each other to create a distinct feel with each keypress.
Topre
Instead, a Topre switch has a conical spring inside its rubber dome and a special capacitive sensor underneath the spring. At a certain point as the spring is compressed, the sensor recognizes that the switch has been actuated electrically and registers the keypress. The rubber dome component provides most of the key’s tactile feel and resistance, but there’s more going on under the hood in a Topre switch than there is in a simpler rubber dome switch, which must be physically “bottomed out” for a keypress to register.
What does all of that actually mean? That’d be my second point: Topre switches are a joy.
Touch typing on the Realforce R2 PFU is consistently smooth and satisfying. It’s fast enough but not too fast. Each press requires just enough force and returns just enough even resistance to give my fingers a distinct, bouncy response but not fatigue them over hours of work. Fully pressing a key here has a noticeably softer “landing” than you’d get on a typical mechanical keyboard. (My particular model has 45g switches, but there are also options with heavier 55g switches or switches with varying weights for different keys.)
This Realforce uses Topre’s “silenced” switches, which aren’t dead silent, but have a pleasingly muffled sound that doesn’t call attention to itself and is still far quieter than most mechanical keyboards. With my wife and I working out of the same one-bedroom apartment for the past three years, being able to keep the noise down has been a necessity. With this, I don’t need to sacrifice a richer typing feel in the process. That said, many Topre owners enjoy the more pronounced but still mellow thock sound of the non-silenced versions of these switches.
The Realforce is also just a well-made piece of hardware. The keycaps have a matte PBT finish that feels durable and avoids virtually all finger grease. The lettering is cleanly legible, and after years of use the dye has shown zero sign of smudging. The keys at the bottom of the board are gently sloped upward in a way that makes them easier to locate without looking. None of the keys feel loose, and there’s no “pinging” sound that you might get if you slam down on a cheaper mechanical board.
Jeff Dunn / Engadget
The outer casing is made of plastic, but it’s thick and smooth, and it doesn’t creak as you press down. (It can flex a little if you go out of your way to squeeze the sides of the board, but there’s no real reason to do that in the first place.) The kickstands on the back are tightly wound in place, and the whole board has a robust sense of heft that keeps it firmly in place. Topre says each switch can survive 50 million keystrokes, which is lower than the ratings for some mechanical switches but still enough to last decades. And while the ivory-and-gray finish of my model won’t fly with everyone, I dig the more professional, ‘80s IBM-style aesthetic. I don’t need showy RGB lighting to signify to myself that I enjoy video games.
On the feature side, this model can also swap between three different actuation points – the idea being that a shorter actuation distance will result in faster key presses for tasks like gaming. I’ve barely messed with that, though, as the default setting has given the right balance between speed and accuracy. All of this is still perfectly serviceable for casual gaming, and it comes with n-key rollover, meaning it’ll recognize any new keypress regardless of how many keys you may already be holding down at once.
There are still many reasons to not get a Topre keyboard. This particular model has nothing in the form of backlighting, for one. Its USB-A cable isn’t detachable, and it only has one kickstand setting. Realforce keyboards generally aren’t compatible with most third-party keycaps, either, so your customizations are far more limited than most mechanical keyboards. And, hello, they usually cost between $220 and $300. The fact that these switches are relatively complex, not in super-high demand and manufactured (and tested) by one company in Japan almost guarantees a high premium.
I also have to note that the Realforce R2 family of keyboards I’m talking about here is technically outdated, as Topre introduced a newer R3 series several months ago. As of this writing, however, those are still not easily available in the US. For now, the R2 models carry all the same general benefits and downsides but are more readily in stock. Broadly recommended third-party models like the Happy Hacking Keyboard are still around as well.
Regardless, any Topre keyboard is a niche device, best suited for enthusiasts who regularly spend long stretches typing and are willing to pay a premium for it to feel consistently pleasant. For better or worse (for my bank account), that’s me. I can’t say it was the most responsible purchase, but the Realforce has made years of work a little more soothing and subtly luxurious, one keypress at a time. If you find yourself in a similarly wanting state, it’s worth finding a way to try one out.
Samsung expanded its self-repair program for Galaxy devices today, adding the latest flagship smartphones and, for the first time, PCs. As you may remember, the initiative is a team-up with iFixit, which provides tools and online self-repair guides.
Starting today, you can order repair kits for the 15-inch models of the Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360. Supported PC repairs include the display, battery, touchpad, case (front and rear), power key with fingerprint reader, and rubber foot. Additionally, Samsung added the Galaxy S22, S22+ and S22 Ultra kits. It supports repairs for the display assemblies, rear glass and charging ports for those phones.
The newly supported models join the program’s initial lineup of the Galaxy S20, Galaxy S21 and Galaxy Tab S7+. The new kits still include a free return label to help you send used parts to Samsung for recycling. All the new kits are available starting today.
Apple’s Self Service Repair program
Apple
While Apple's program covers more components (including cameras and SIM trays), it also requires you to rent or buy a separate toolkit and talk with someone on the phone to complete the process. With Samsung's kit, you only need to buy the part and follow the instructions.
Samsung frames its self-repair program as being about convenience and the environment — and it can be beneficial for both of those things. But the elephant in the room is Right to Repair legislation on federal and state levels. New York and Massachusetts have passed laws mandating self-repair programs, while the White House has also pushed for it. In 2021, President Biden ordered the FTC to tackle “unfair anti-competitive restrictions on third-party repair or self-repair of items” in the farming and technology industries. So although Samsung’s and Apple’s programs are good for consumers, it’s a stretch to think this would happen without the threat of government legislation.
Uber is expanding its electric car rentals to Europe. The ridesharing service has expanded its deal with Hertz to provide up to 25,000 EVs to European capital cities by 2025, including those from Polestar and Tesla. The rollout will begin in London this month, and will reach hubs like Amsterdam and Paris as soon as 2023. Rates and other details will be available in "due course," Uber says.
The companies first teamed up in late 2021, when Hertz pledged to offer up to 50,000 Tesla rental EVs to Uber drivers in the US. Last spring, Hertz said it would add as many as 65,000 Polestar EVs to its fleet within five years. The rental car agency claims its Uber partnership in North America has been successful — almost 50,000 drivers have rented Tesla vehicles so far.
Both firms see the European expansion as key to furthering their goals. Uber says it plans to be a "zero-emissions platform" in London by 2025, and completely electric in Europe and North America by 2030. Hertz, meanwhile, has set out to offer "one of the largest" EV fleets worldwide.
Neither brand may have much choice, however. The UK and European Union intend to ban sales of new fossil fuel cars by 2035, and the EU agreement also demands cutting new car emissions by 55 percent from 2030. Many automakers operating in Europe, like Ford and Volvo, expect to drop combustion engines by 2030. Uber and Hertz will have to adopt EVs in the next several years, and these rentals could help ease the transition for drivers who can't justify buying the technology at this stage.
As rumored, Apple has unveiled is new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips that will arrive very soon in new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini computers. The new models will be up to 40 percent faster than before and better still, they're now available to order and will start shipping next week.
The new entry level chip processor is the M2 Pro, which offers 10- or 12-core core CPUs including eight high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, boosting performance by up to 20 percent over the 10-core M1 Pro CPU. The GPU, meanwhile, goes up from 16 to 19 cores, promising faster processing for content creation apps like Photoshop or compiling in Xcode.
Apple
Meanwhile, Apple calls the M2 Max "the world's most powerful and efficient chip for a pro laptop" with the same 12 cores as the M2 Pro, but an increase from 34 to 38 GPU cores. More impressively, it supports up to 96GB of fast unified memory. With all that, Apple is processing graphic speeds up to 30 percent higher than the M1 Max chip, for chores like visual effects, machine learning and more.
The new MacBook Pro 14- and 16-inch models have the same designs as before, but offer considerably more performance, plus up to an incredible 96GB of unified memory in the M2 Max model. Apple is promising up to a 30 percent boost in graphics performance with the M2 Max model and a more modest boost on the M2 Pro.
One of the main benefits, though, is battery life, as the MacBook Pro can now run up to 22 hours — the longest ever on a Mac, Apple claims. And as rumored, it now supports WiFi 6E, which offers up to twice the speed of the previous generation. Another new feature is an HDMI port that supports 8K for the first time.
The models have similar designs the late 2021 M1 Pro/Max versions, so you get features like a MagSafe power connector and Liquid Retina XDR displays. The rumored touchscreens are not on these models but expected to come in a couple of years. The new MacBook Pro models are now available to preorder starting at $1,999 for the MacBook Pro with M2 Pro, and $2,499 for the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro. Shipping will start on January 24th.
These chips will also appear in Apple's new Mac mini, which comes with either an M2 or M2 Pro chip, giving potential buyers a budget option. Apple is promising considerably faster graphics processing and AI speeds for content creation, gaming, music and more.
Apple
The M2 version comes with up to 24GB of unified memory and 100GB/s of bandwidth, boosting image editing speeds in Photoshop by up to 50 percent, for example. It can also "simultaneously play up to two streams of 8K ProRes 422 video at 30 fps, or up to 12 streams of 4K ProRes 422 video at 30 fps," Apple says.
The faster M2 Pro version, meanwhile, supports up to 32GB of unified memory and offers 200GB/s of memory bandwidth. That delivers up to 2.5x faster graphics performance in Affinity Photo, 4.2 faster ProRes transcode in Final Cut Pro and 2.8x faster gameplay in Resident Evil Village, the company claims.
As before, it offers two Thunderbolt 4 ports with support for up to two displays, and can support a single 8K display — a first for a Mac. It also comes with two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, A gigabit ethernet port with a 10GB option and an upgraded headphone jack that supports high-impedance headphones. As with the MacBook Pro, they also offer WiFi 6E connectivity, along with Bluetooth 5.3.
The new Mac mini starts at $599 with the M2 chip or $1,299 with the M2 Pro, and is now available on preorder with shipping set to start on January 24th.
