We were enamored with the Kindle Scribe when we reviewed it, but we weren't blind to its shortcomings, including its limited editing capabilities. Now, Amazon has rolled out an update for the device, which solves some of the issues we had with it and makes it a much better option for note-taking. One of the new features is the ability to write directly on page. It's still not available for every book, but the Kindle Store on the Scribe now has a new section called "Write-on Books" where you can find titles that support the feature. 

At the moment, the selection of books with direct on-page writing is mostly made up of guided journals, as well as games like crossword and sudoku. In other words, books that don't make sense on a device where writing on them is not supported. If you're checking out titles on a laptop or a phone, you can also see if they support the feature by looking for "On-page writing" under their product details section. For books that don't support on-page writing, you'll still have to create a sticky note and write within a designated rectangle. You'll have to keep your fingers crossed for the ability to doodle and take notes on the margin of a book if that's something you've been wishing for. 

If you want to share or upload notes you've written on the Scribe, the update also gives you the capability to easily convert them to text. You'll find a new option that reads "Convert to text and quick send" in the share menu and another that says "Convert to text and email." Both options share your handwritten notebooks as a .txt file, but for the latter, you'll be given the the chance to review and edit the converted text before sharing them via email to five addresses. 

There's also a new lasso select tool to move your notes and doodles around. You simply have to circle your handwritten text or drawings with it to resize them, drag them to another location or to cut, copy and paste them within a sticky note, a notebook or a PDF. Speaking of PDFs, files with the format uploaded through Send to Kindle are now more customizable. You can crop their margins to make their text easier to read, select text to highlight it and add text notes. You'll now also be able to look up the definitions, translations and Wikipedia results for text found in PDF files, as well as switch between portrait and landscape view. 

These features will roll out to all Kindle Scribes in the coming weeks, but you can manually download the latest software update to get them right now. 

There are a lot of factors to consider when you’re looking for the best iPad to fit your needs. But, if you’re more interested in an entry-level model than something more powerful and pricey, the standard iPad might just fit the bill. Even better, the 2022 iPad is currently on sale for $399. That’s $50 off the regular price and it matches a record low.

This deal is for the base model with 64GB of storage. We gave this tablet a score of 85 in our review. We liked the updated design that takes a page out of the iPad Air's book, the improved performance and battery life compared with the previous generation and the switch to USB-C charging. Moving the front-facing camera to the landscape side is a welcome change too. That makes far more sense for those who use the tablet for video calls while propping it up with the kickstand or a keyboard folio. Speaking of which, the keyboard folio got an upgrade, since there are larger trackpad and function keys.

On the downside, the $250 folio is expensive; it's not far off the price of the tablet during this sale. We also felt that, while larger than previous models, the quality of the screen isn't as refined as those in higher-end iPads. For instance, it doesn't have an anti-reflective coating or support for the P3 wide color gamut. Perhaps most gallingly for those with a first-generation Apple Pencil, you'll need a USB-C cable and a Lightning to USB-C adapter to charge the peripheral from this iPad.

Still, there's more positives than negatives to be found here. This iPad has a lot of improvements over the previous generation. If you've been holding onto an older model for several years and don't want to break the bank on a replacement, this deal is certainly worth considering.

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For the first time, Apple has published an App Store transparency report. You can read the full two-page document on the company’s website. It reveals several interesting tidbits about the App Store, including the fact that, as of 2022, there were 1,783,232 apps on the storefront.

In the document, first spotted by 9to5Mac (via The Verge), Apple also reveals that it reviewed 6,101,913 submissions last year (submissions can include updates to existing apps, not just new releases). Of those, it rejected 1,679,694. Surprisingly, the majority of submissions, more than 1 million, didn’t make it to the App Store for failing to comply with Apple’s performance guidelines. The company also rejected 441,972 submissions on legal grounds.

Apple also removed 186,195 apps removed from the App Store in 2022. Last year, the company fielded 1,474 takedown requests, with the vast majority (1,435, to be exact) coming from mainland China. In a distant second was India, with 14 requests. Over that same time frame, Apple says it fielded 5,484 appeals involving apps removed from the App Store in China. Following successful appeals, it also restored 169 apps to the Chinese App Store. Last year, iPhone, iPad and Mac users downloaded an average of 747,873,877 apps every week, which would be an even more impressive number if they didn’t also redownload an average of 1,539,274,266 apps every week.

Apple agreed to begin publishing App Store transparency reports as part of a settlement the company came to with App Store developers in 2021. At the time, the company said the reports would “share meaningful statistics about the app review process, including the number of apps rejected for different reasons, the number of customer and developer accounts deactivated, objective data regarding search queries and results, and the number of apps removed from the App Store.”

Every third Thursday of May, the world commemorates Global Accessibility Awareness Day or GAAD. And as has become customary in the last few years, major tech companies are taking this week as a chance to share their latest accessibility-minded products. From Apple and Google to Webex and Adobe, the industry’s biggest players have launched new features to make their products easier to use. Here’s a quick roundup of this week’s GAAD news.

Apple's launches and updates

First up: Apple. The company actually had a huge set of updates to share, which makes sense since it typically releases most of its accessibility-centric news at this time each year. For 2023, Apple is introducing Assistive Access, which is an accessibility setting that, when turned on, changes the home screen for iPhone and iPad to a layout with fewer distractions and icons. You can choose from a row-based or grid-based layout, and the latter would result in a 2x3 arrangement of large icons. You can decide what these are, and most of Apple’s first-party apps can be used here.

The icons themselves are larger than usual, featuring high contrast labels making them more readable. When you tap into an app, a back button appears at the bottom for easier navigation. Assistive Access also includes a new Calls app that combines Phone and FaceTime features into one customized experience. Messages, Camera, Photos and Music have also been tweaked for the simpler interface and they all feature high contrast buttons, large text labels and tools that, according to Apple, "help trusted supporters tailor the experience for the individual they're supporting." The goal is to offer a less-distracting or confusing system to those who may find the typical iOS interface overwhelming.

Apple also launched Live Speech this week, which works on iPhone, iPad and Mac. It will allow users to type what they want to say and have the device read it aloud. It not only works for in-person conversations, but for Phone and FaceTime calls as well. You'll also be able to create shortcuts for phrases you frequently use, like "Hi, can I get a tall vanilla latte?" or "Excuse me, where is the bathroom?" The company also introduced Personal Voice, which lets you create a digital voice that sounds like yours. This could be helpful for those at risk of losing their ability to speak due to conditions that could impact their voice. The setup process includes "reading alongside randomized text prompts for about 15 minutes on iPhone or iPad."

For those with visual impairments, Apple is adding a new Point and Speak feature to the detection mode in Magnifier. This will use an iPhone or iPad's camera, LiDAR scanner and on-device machine learning to understand where a person has positioned their finger and scan the target area for words, before reading them out for the user. For instance, if you hold up your phone and point at different parts on a microwave or washing machine's controls, the system will say what the labels are — like "Add 30 seconds," "Defrost" or "Start."

The company made a slew of other smaller announcements this week, including updates that allow Macs to pair directly with Made-for-iPhone hearing devices, as well as phonetic suggestions for text editing in voice typing.

Google's new accessibility tools

Meanwhile, Google is introducing a new Visual Question and Answer (or VQA) tool in the Lookout app, which uses AI to answer follow-up questions about images. The company's accessibility lead and senior director of Products For All Eve Andersson told Engadget in an interview that VQA is the result of a collaboration between the inclusion and DeepMind teams. 

Google

To use VQA, you'll open Lookout and start the Images mode to scan a picture. After the app tells you what's in the scene, you can ask follow-ups to glean more detail. For example, if Lookout said the image depicts a family having a picnic, you can ask what time of day it is or whether there are trees around them. This lets the user determine how much information they want from a picture, instead of being constrained to an initial description. 

Often, it is tricky to figure out how much detail to include in an image description, since you want to provide enough to be helpful but not so much that you overwhelm the user. For example, "What’s the right amount of detail to give to our users in Lookout?" Andersson said. "You never actually know what they want." Andersson added that AI can help determine the context of why someone is asking for a description or more information and deliver the appropriate info. 

When it launches in the fall, VQA can present a way for the user to decide when to ask for more and when they've learned enough. Of course, since it's powered by AI, the generated data might not be accurate, so there's no guarantee this tool works perfectly, but it's an interesting approach that puts power in users' hands. 

Google is also expanding Live Captions to work in French, Italian and German later this year, as well as bringing the wheelchair-friendly labels for places in Maps to more people around the world. 

Microsoft, Samsung, Adobe and more

Plenty more companies had news to share this week, including Adobe, which is rolling out a feature that uses AI to automate the process of generating tags for PDFs that would make them friendlier for screen readers. This uses Adobe's Sensei AI, and will also indicate the correct reading order. Since this could really speed up the process of tagging PDFs, people and organizations could potentially use the tool to go through stockpiles of old documents to make them more accessible. Adobe is also launching a PDF Accessibility Checker to "enable large organizations to quickly and efficiently evaluate the accessibility of existing PDFs at scale." 

Microsoft also had some small updates to share, specifically around Xbox. It's added new accessibility settings to the Xbox app on PC, including options to disable background images and disable animations, so users can reduce potentially disruptive, confusing or triggering components. The company also expanded its support pages and added accessibility filters to its web store to make it easier to find optimized games.

Meanwhile, Samsung announced this week that it's adding two new levels of ambient sound settings to the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, which brings the total number of options to five. This would let those who use the earbuds to listen to their environment get greater control over how loud they want the sounds to be. They'll also be able to select different settings for individual ears, as well as choose the levels of clarity and create customized profiles for their hearing.

We also learned that Cisco, the company behind the Webex video conferencing software, is teaming up with speech recognition company VoiceITT to add transcriptions that better support people with non-standard speech. This builds on Webex's existing live translation feature, and uses VoiceITT's AI to familiarize itself with a person's speech patterns to better understand what they want to communicate. Then, it'll establish and transcribe what is said, and the captions will appear in a chat bar during calls. 

Finally, we also saw Mozilla announce that Firefox 113 would be more accessible by enhancing the screen reader experience, while Netflix revealed a sizzle reel showcasing some of its latest assistive features and developments over the past year. In its announcement, Netflix said that while it has "made strides in accessibility, [it knows] there is always more work to be done."

That sentiment is true not just for Netflix, nor the tech industry alone, but also for the entire world. While it's nice to see so many companies take the opportunity this week to release and highlight accessibility-minded features, it's important to remember that inclusive design should not and cannot be a once-a-year effort. I was also glad to see that despite the current fervor around generative AI, most companies did not appear to stuff the buzzword into every assistive feature or announcement this week for no good reason. For example, Andersson said "we're typically thinking about user needs" and adopting a problem-first approach as opposed to focusing on determining where a type of technology can be applied to a solution.

While it's probably at least partially true that announcements around GAAD are a bit of a PR and marketing game, ultimately some of the tools launched today can actually improve the lives of people with disabilities or different needs. I call that a net win.

BlackBerry has everything Apple's Tetris film lacked: human drama grounded in actual history, without the need to spice things up with car chases and fantastical storytelling. On the face of it, the rise and fall of Research in Motion's keyboard-equipped smartphone may not seem inherently compelling. But the brilliance of the film — directed by Matt Johnson, who also co-wrote it with Matthew Miller — is that it makes the BlackBerry's journey feel like a genuine tragedy.

It's driven by two dramatically different people: RIM’s co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis, a nebbishy genius of an engineer, and Jim Balsillie, a ruthless and perpetually angry businessman. They struggled on their own, but together were able to rule the mobile industry for more than a decade. And then came the iPhone, which instantly reversed their fortunes.

Like many former titans, RIM fell victim to the innovator's dilemma. As described by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, it's what happens when large and successful companies are entirely focused on iterating on existing products and appeasing customers. That leaves room for a more nimble newcomer to come along and develop something revolutionary that the incumbents could never have imagined.

In this case, it's Apple's iPhone, which lands like a nuclear bomb in the technology world. The film shows Lazaridis and his engineering team watching Steve Jobs' iconic iPhone keynote in disbelief. Lazaridis is the genius protagonist we've seen come up with the idea of a handheld, keyboard-equipped pocket computer that's efficient enough to run on unused, low-bandwidth wireless signals. Even after BlackBerry takes off, we see him have another stroke of inspiration with BlackBerry Messenger, a service that delivered free messaging to RIM's customers at a time when carriers charged 10 cents per SMS text. It was a brilliant maneuver that made BlackBerry users even more loyal, since BBM wasn't accessible on any other device.

IFC Films

Even though he was no stranger to game-changing innovation himself, Lazaridis didn't think the iPhone would work. It was too expensive. It didn't have a physical keyboard. And it was built to gobble up mobile data (something RIM took pains to avoid). Who would want that? Turns out everyone did. While the iPhone was indeed pricey at launch, carrier subsidies made it easier to stomach. Its large screen, (eventual) App Store and revolutionary OS made up for its touch-based keyboard. And it arrived just as 3G networks were rolling out, which gave carriers more of an incentive to charge customers for data instead of cellular minutes. Just as the BlackBerry gave us a glimpse of an always-connected world in 1999, the iPhone promised to put the full power of the internet in your pocket.

Spoilers for real life, I guess: BlackBerry dropped from having 20 percent of the global smartphone market share in 2010 to 0 percent in 2017, according to Statista. For people who weren't around for the company's heyday, the film serves as a valuable history lesson.

Crucially, though, it's not just like reading a Wikipedia entry. Johnson tells us exactly who Laziridis and Balsillie are from the very first scenes of the movie. As Laziridis and his RIM co-founder Doug Fregin prepare for a pitch meeting with Balsillie, he can't help but notice a buzzing intercom in the room. It's made in China, which to him is a red flag for bad engineering. So, almost without thinking, Laziridis tears it open and fixes a defective component. Balsillie, meanwhile, spends that time scheming to take the limelight away from a co-worker, simply because he thinks he's smarter than everyone around him.

While that first meeting doesn't go well, it's almost as if Laziridis and Balsillie's lives are destined to intertwine. The engineer needs someone with business smarts to sell his vision, and the business man needs something hot to sell. As played by Jay Baruchel (This is the End, How to Train Your Dragon), Lazaridis is practically a poster child for socially awkward engineers. Glenn Howerton, meanwhile, channels the childish energy of his It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia character to portray Balsillie as a coked-up ball of rage. He may get results, but he also has the uncanny ability to turn every room into a toxic workplace.

BlackBerry succeeds by making us care about Laziridis and his cadre of geeks, and by making Balsillie’s antics relentlessly entertaining (even when he’s being a complete jerk). But what’s most impressive is that it gives the story of Research in Motion a compelling dramatic shape: the rise of the genius, the defeat of his enemies (Palm’s potential hostile takeover of the company is particularly harrowing) and the inevitable downfall. It’ll forever change the way you view BlackBerry. And for the tech titans of today, the movie is a textbook example of how quickly you can fall from grace.

OpenAI has launched a free ChatGPT app for iOS. It’s the first official smartphone app for the viral language model, joining a crowded field of third-party mobile AI software vying for your attention — many of which tap into the GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 APIs powering ChatGPT. It’s only available in the US for now, but the company says it will expand to additional countries “in the coming weeks.”

Feature-wise, OpenAI’s app looks and behaves much like the ChatGPT website — with the addition of voice input using OpenAI’s Whisper speech recognition. It also allows switching between standard and GPT-4 language models for ChatGPT Plus subscribers, as well as conversation history (synced from the desktop if you sign in with the same account) and the ability to export data and delete or rename conversations. However, the company’s recently launched plugins, including live web access, are absent.

OpenAI suggests Android users won’t be left in the dark for long, as the company promises, “You’re next!” In addition, the App Store version is currently made for iPhone only, so iPad users need to either stick with the ChatGPT website or use the iOS app awkwardly upscaled to tablet size.

With Global Accessibility Awareness Day just days away, Apple is previewing a raft of new iOS features for cognitive accessibility, along with Live Speech, Personal Voice and more. The company said it worked in "deep collaboration" with community groups representing users with disabilities, and drew on "advances in hardware and software, including on-device machine learning" to make them work. 

The biggest update is "Assistive Access" designed to support users with cognitive disabilities. Essentially, it provides a custom, simplified experience for the phone, FaceTime, Messages, Camera, Photos, and Music apps. That includes a "distinct interface with high contrast buttons and large text labels" along with tools that can be customized by trusted supporters for each individual. 

Apple

"For example, for users who prefer communicating visually, Messages includes an emoji-only keyboard and the option to record a video message to share with loved ones. Users and trusted supporters can also choose between a more visual, grid-based layout for their Home Screen and apps, or a row-based layout for users who prefer text," Apple wrote. 

The aim is to break down technological barriers for people with cognitive disabilities. "The intellectual and developmental disability community is bursting with creativity, but technology often poses physical, visual, or knowledge barriers for these individuals," said The Arc's Katy Schmid in a statement. "To have a feature that provides a cognitively accessible experience on iPhone or iPad — that means more open doors to education, employment, safety, and autonomy. It means broadening worlds and expanding potential." 

Another important new feature is Live Speech and Personal Voice for iPhone, iPad and Mac. Live Speech lets users type what they want to say and have it spoken out loud during phone and FaceTime calls or for in-person conversations. For users who can still speak but are at risk of losing their ability to do so due to a diagnosis of ALS or other conditions, there's the Personal Voice feature.

Apple

It lets them create a voice that sounds like their own by reading along with a randomized set of text prompts to record 15 minutes of audio on iPhone or iPad. It then uses on-device machine learning to keep user information private, and works with Live Speech so users can effectively speak with others using a version of their own voices. "If you can tell [your friends and family] you love them, in a voice that sounds like you, it makes all the difference in the world," said Team Gleason board member and ALS advocate Philip Green, who has had his own voice impacted by ALS. 

Finally, Apple has introduced a Point and Speak function in the Magnifier to help users with vision disabilities interact with physical objects. "For example, while using a household appliance — such as a microwave — Point and Speak combines input from the Camera app, the LiDAR Scanner, and on-device machine learning to announce the text on each button as users move their finger across the keypad," it wrote. The feature is built into the Magnifier app on iPhone and iPad, and can be used with other Magnifier features like People Detection, Door Detection and others. 

Along with the new functions, Apple is introducing new features, curated collections and more for Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Those include a SignTime launch in Germany, Italy, Spain and South Korea to connect Apple Store and Support customers with on-demand sign language interpreters, along with accessibility informative sessions at select Apple Store locations around the world. It's also offering podcasts, movies and more around the impact of accessible tech. The new Assistive Access and other features are set to roll out later this year, Apple said — for more, check out its press release. 

Microsoft says iPhone support for its Phone Link app is now available for all Windows 11 users. Announced in February, Microsoft’s feature allows syncing calls, contacts and messages — including limited iMessage support — between an iPhone and PC.

Phone Link has been around (under various names) for Android-synced desktop features since 2015, but this is the first time it’s supported iPhones. Microsoft has deployed a phased launch, starting with select Windows Insider preview testers in late February. Then, the company began rolling out general availability last month, promising to support all Windows 11 users by mid-May. So, right on cue, it said today that everyone with a Windows PC and iPhone can now use the new feature.

Phone Link for iPhone has several limitations that Android phones don’t. First, although it supports iMessage syncing, it doesn’t work with group chats or sending images and videos. In addition, voice messages and iMessage apps won’t work. Still, it could serve as a handy built-in service to save you from switching between your computer and phone.

To get started, you’ll want to search for “Phone Link” in the Windows taskbar. After opening the app, you’ll still need to set up a few things on both devices. First, select iPhone as your device type, and use your phone’s camera to scan the QR code in the Phone Link app. The devices will pair over Bluetooth, and you’ll need to confirm several permissions on both iPhone and PC. It supports any iPhone running iOS 14.0 or later.

If a Pixel phone is your daily driver, you may want to keep a charger nearby. An Engadget reader contacted us on Sunday to report that their Pixel 6 Pro has recently been overheating and excessively draining its battery. They suspect the culprit is the Google app and an update that began rolling out on May 12th.

“I haven't touched my phone in the past hour. It's just been on a standard wireless charger,” the reader says of a screenshot (seen below) they sent of their phone’s settings menu, showing the Google app burning through the 6 Pro’s battery in the background. “Still very hot, and if I didn't roll back to a different version, I wouldn't have a net increase on my phone's battery.”

Courtesy of Engadget reader

A visit to Reddit and the Google support forums shows other Pixel users are experiencing the same issue. “It just started yesterday. Massive battery usage from Google app and to a lesser degree Android System Intelligence. I just went through and did a factory reset, reinstalled most things and it's still happening,” one Reddit user wrote. “Beyond the battery not lasting the phone is getting really warm so I know it's harming the battery and potentially the CPU.”

Those who have tried contacting Google report the company’s support staff haven’t been very helpful. Some users say rolling back to an older version of the Google app hasn’t fixed the problem for them. “Actually ended up with an even older version from May 10, still draining the battery,” writes one Redditor. The reader who contacted us suspects the problem may be server-side. “Google app keeps wrecking the battery regardless of version, and I've rolled all the way back to May 1st,” they write. “I don't know how to see if the app is trying to call home or on a loop with something like that, but the symptoms remain the same.”

Google did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request. If the Google app is at fault here, it wouldn’t be the first time a software update has caused headaches for Pixel users. Last May, Google had to patch the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro after an earlier update caused the phones to produce much weaker haptic feedback. The year before the company paused the rollout of its December Pixel update after users found it was making their phones drop calls.

Apple’s second-generation Pencil stylus is one of the best accessories you can buy for an iPad Pro or iPad Air, but at $125, it’s not the most affordable purchase. So it’s worth noting when the stylus is on sale like it is right now at Amazon. At the moment, you can get the Apple Pencil for $85, or 34 percent off what it normally costs. The Pencil’s previous low price was $89, so this is a new all-time low for the accessory. The timing is perfect too since the iPad Air is also on sale this weekend.

The Apple Pencil is a must-have if you’re a visual artist, photographer or designer, but it’s also handy if you enjoy jotting down notes or journaling. You can customize the Pencil’s double-tap feature to suit your needs, and, with built-in pressure sensitivity, you can add as much or as little detail to an illustration as you want. Best of all, you charge the second-generation model by attaching it magnetically to your iPad, a big improvement from the goofy design of the previous model.

On that note, just keep in mind the 2022 iPad does not support the second-generation Apple Pencil. For older iPads, Apple has a handy compatibility list if you’re unsure if the second-generation Pencil will work with your tablet.

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