NotebookLM, the Google research tool that gained notoriety for its uncanny AI-generated podcasts, is getting an official app on May 20, 2025. You can pre-register for the Android or iOS version of the app right now and have it automatically downloaded to your device on May 20, the first day of Google I/O 2025. 

Based on the listings in the Play Store and App Store, Google seems intent on keeping all of the core functionality of the web version of NotebookLM intact for its mobile debut. You can upload a variety of different sources (PDFs, website URLs, YouTube videos and copied text) and have NotebookLM, powered by Gemini, do stuff with them. That could be answering specific questions, generating study guides or creating an Audio Overview, the previously-mentioned "podcasts."

Google

NotebookLM started life as Project Tailwind back at I/O 2023 and has gradually transitioned from research project to real product over time. The service officially launched as NotebookLM in December 2023 and gained Audio Overviews in September 2024. As of April 2025, NotebookLM is now offered in more than 50 languages. Getting an actual app release is the best sign yet the service is here to stay.

Critical to its sucess, NotebookLM makes more sense as a tool you can trust than basically any other Gemini product. The service's output is grounded in documents and sources you choose. That means Google's AI is less likely to hallucinate because it's quoting a research study directly, and it's easier to double check its answers because you can view the source directly in NotebookLM.

Google has already signaled that I/O 2025 will be Gemini-focused by breaking out Android announcements into their own stream, so there's a good chance NotebookLM won't be the only AI product getting some love on May 20. It remains to be seen whether Google has any ideas as cogent as "an AI that helps you digest long PDFs," though.

Q: I'm a Gen X Windows user, I've been building my own systems for decades, and I work mainly in 3D design for the building and construction industry. I would like to know if you feel switching to Mac makes sense with all this unnecessary tariff turmoil?

I've been trying to make the leap for years ... I feel like I need someone to just tell me to go for it and not look back. — Jim from Bainbridge Island, Washington

A: It's undoubtedly a great time to make the jump from Windows to Macs. The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are among the highest-rated laptops we've reviewed over the last few years, and the Mac mini and iMac are also fantastic solutions for desktop users. There's certainly a bit of a learning curve when jumping platforms, but it's mostly just a problem if you require specialized software that only runs on Windows.

Devindra Hardawar for Engadget

What are the benefits of moving from Windows to Mac?

There are three big advantages from switching from Windows to Mac.

Speed

At the moment, the biggest advantage is the sheer speed of Macs. That's entirely thanks to Apple Silicon, the company's custom chips that are built to be efficient and very fast. In our benchmarks, even the most basic M4 chip blows away most of the hardware from Intel and AMD. Apple's advantage only grows as you move up to its Pro, Max and Ultra chips.

Apple Silicon's speed doesn't just show up in benchmarks. It's easy to see that modern Macs, even the entry-level MacBook Air, feel zippier than comparably-priced Windows PCs. That goes for everything including web browsing and office productivity apps, as well as more complex tasks like rendering video. Apple's chips also include some powerful graphics cores, giving you the ability to easily run many games from the App Store. While you certainly wouldn't mistake any Mac as a true gaming PC, I was still surprised that the MacBook Air was able to run a complex new game like Lies of P in 1080p at 60 fps.

Battery life

Since Apple Silicon is based on Arm's mobile chip architecture, it's also a lot more efficient than Intel and AMD's more demanding CPUs. That leads to killer battery life across the board for Mac laptops. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air lasted well over 18 hours in our video benchmark, while the MacBook Pros went beyond 30 hours. In real-world usage, you can expect most Macs to last two full work days without needing a charge. Macs also tend to hold their charge in standby mode far better than PCs, so you can have a bit more faith that they'll be ready to work the instant you turn them on.

Durability

After reviewing Macs for the last 15 years, and supporting them as an IT worker for a decade before that, I can also confidently say that Mac hardware lasts longer than PCs. Apple's aluminum cases withstand bumps and drops far better than the cheap plastic you'll find on some PCs. Now that's not to say they're immune to wear and tear, but from what I've seen Macs just tend to hold up well. If you do need to get something fixed, it's also relatively easy to get that done at an Apple Store, instead of shipping a Windows PC off to its maker.

Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

What are the downsides of switching from Windows to Macs?

While I think it’s worth making the jump to Macs overall, there are a few downsides:

Windows to Mac learning curve

Given how much of our computing lives revolve around cloud apps like Gmail and Google Docs these days, moving to Macs mainly involves learning the basics of Apple's platforms. Installing software outside of the App Store works a bit differently than Windows — you often have to drag an app to the Applications folder, instead of clicking through an installer. Apple's trackpads also don't support right-clicking by default. Instead, you either have to hold down the Control key and click, or enable a Secondary Click feature (System Preferences > Trackpad). There you can assign right-clicks to a two-finger tap, or a tap on the bottom corners of the trackpad.

The macOS Dock can be confusing since it can't show all of your open apps like the Windows taskbar can. Subsequently, managing all of your open apps can be a pain. My suggestion? Set up Hot Corners (System Settings > Desktop and Dock > Hot Corners) so that your Mac will reveal your apps whenever you drag your pointer to a corner of your screen.

Since that feature debuted (it was originally called Expose), I’ve set it up to reveal current app windows in one corner, all of my windows in another, and the desktop in a third. Apple’s Stage Manager, which debuted in macOS Ventura, can also help you wrangle apps, but I typically only use that when I want to focus on one or two programs.

Lackluster gaming library, limited upgrade options

Apple has historically been terrible when it comes to supporting games on macOS, but it’s getting better. Recent titles like the aforementioned Lies of P, as well as Resident Evil Village and Death Stranding, are readily available on the app store. There are also more titles on Steam shipping with dedicated Mac support, and cloud streaming opens up access to services like Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass library.

But there’s no way Apple will be able to catch up with Windows when it comes to overall gaming support anytime soon. So if you actually care about always getting the latest titles, you might want to stick with PCs. That's doubly true if you also have any interest in ever wanting to upgrade video cards, RAM or internal storage options, all of which aren't really accessible on Macs — including desktop models. 

No touchscreen support

While Apple pioneered the use of touchscreens with the iPhone and iPad, it’s stubbornly refused to bring that feature over to Macs. So if you’re used to casually flicking a laptop's screen to scroll, you’re just out of luck with Macs… for now. A 2023 report claimed that we may see a touchscreen MacBook Pro this year, but it’s unclear if that will actually happen. Personally, I don’t miss having a touchscreen when I use Macs, since Apple’s glass touchpads feel just as fluid.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

A brief history of Mac vs. Windows

The battle between Mac and Windows is nearly as old as the concept of personal computing itself, and it will likely never end. In 1983, Apple's Lisa broke new ground as the first consumer computer with a graphical user interface (GUI), and the company followed that up with the more affordable Macintosh in 1984. Microsoft countered with Windows 1.0 in 1985, but the platform didn't really take off until Windows 3.0 arrived in 1990.

By that point, the philosophical differences between the two companies was clear: Apple was more focused on delivering friendly user experiences for its custom hardware, while Microsoft built up Windows as a platform that could run on a wide variety of computers. Consequently, the user culture around both platforms became fairly distinct: Macs became the go-to choice for anyone working in creative fields and academia, whereas Windows was more focused on office work and straightforward productivity. There's also always been a major price difference between the platforms, as Apple's custom hardware has typically cost far more than your basic Windows PC.

Over the years, Apple has gone from using Motorola's PowerPC chips to Intel's — a move that brought Macs far closer to Windows PCs. And most recently, Apple completely changed things up again by moving entirely to its own Apple Silicon chips, which are built around the same mobile architecture used by iPhones and iPads.

While Macs and Windows remain very distinct, the differences between them have flattened a bit now that we’re relying on so many cloud services. Using Gmail or Google Docs on a Mac is no different than on a Windows system, after all.

Which Mac is best for you?

It may sound cliche to say this, but Apple’s Mac family now has something for everyone (unless you’re a hardcore gamer). We’re four generations deep into Apple Silicon chips, and all of the company’s hardware has seen some helpful impressive revisions. The real question is figuring out which Mac is best for you. 

A note on pricing: While Apple's entry-level prices are more reasonable than ever before, they do skyrocket as you add more RAM and storage. You also can't add more memory or storage to Apple Silicon systems down the line, so you'll have to think hard about what you need when you buy a new Mac. I'd recommend prioritizing more RAM when possible, as you could always use cloud services or external drives for storage beyond your SSD. I'd also suggest snagging a new Mac soon if you're interested, as there's a chance Apple could start increasing prices to keep up with tariffs. (Just recently, both Microsoft and DJI have increased prices for aging devices.)

But if you're finally ready to pull the trigger on a new Mac, these are your best options right now. You can also find some excellent deals if you look for refurbished M3 and M2 versions of the systems below.

The MacBook Air is the best ultraportable laptop available today. It’s fast, incredibly light, has great battery life and is also completely silent, since it has no cooling fan. Now that it starts at $999 with 16GB of RAM, it’s also a surprisingly good deal. Unless you need the additional ports and improved screen on the MacBook Pro, the Air will be all the computer you need for several years.

Stepping up to the MacBook Pro gets you a high refresh rate screen, faster M4 Pro chips and a wide variety of ports (including more USB-C connections, a microSD card reader and HDMI). While it’s heavier than the Air, the 14-inch MacBook Pro is still relatively light and is better-suited to sustained workloads, like video encoding or 3D rendering. The 16-inch MacBook Pro is pretty much the same machine with a larger screen.

Starting at $599 (but often on sale for much less), the Mac mini is a powerful-yet-tiny box that can outmatch full-sized Windows desktops. It’s the ideal gateway to the world of Macs if you already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse you like. The base model is powerful enough to handle any productivity task you throw at it, but if you need more performance you can also step up to the M4 Pro-equipped Mac mini. In addition to shrinking it down for this latest revision, Apple also seems to have heard my complaints and added two USB-C ports to the front of the Mac mini. Together with three more USB-C ports on the rear, HDMI and Ethernet, the Mac mini serves up a comprehensive array of ports and it’s hard to think of a more capable $600 PC.

While the iMac isn’t the first all-in-one desktop computer, it’s popularized the form factor to the point where most PC makers have their own copycat products. Now with an M4 chip, the iMac is more powerful than ever, while also sporting a thin profile that means it fits right at home on a kitchen table. Its 24-inch screen is just right for getting a bit of work done without dominating a table, and its speakers also sound surprisingly great. The iMac is the ideal family computer, one that can be set up just about anywhere and be useful for kids and parents alike.

If you need more power than the Mac mini, the Mac Studio is a powerhouse of a desktop. While it's still far smaller than a typical Windows desktop, its M4 Max and M4 Ultra chips can easily take on the best hardware from Intel and AMD. At this point, the Mac Studio is more of a Mac for professionals than the actual Mac Pro, which is far more expensive and more meant for high-level corporate work. 

Have a tech question you’d like Engadget to answer?

As tech reporters, the Engadget staff is always answering questions from readers, friends and family about electronics, software, gaming, big tech policies and more. So we decided to write down our answers. This question came from a listener of The Engadget Podcast, and has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity. If you’ve got a tech-related question you’d like us to answer for you, please email ask@engadget.com.

Apple has updated its App Store guidelines to comply with the orders of a California court, which required the company to immediately stop collecting commissions on purchases that weren't paid through the App Store. As noticed by 9to5Mac, the most prominent change in the guidelines states that there are now no prohibitions on "buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms other than in-app purchase," as long as it's for an app on the US storefront. Further, developers don't have to request for an entitlement from Apple to be able to offer external link purchases on apps for the United States storefront anymore. 

In the section stating that certain applications, such as reader apps and apps that sell goods and services, cannot encourage users to opt for third-party purchasing methods in-app, Apple added that the prohibition doesn't apply to apps on the US store. "The App Review Guidelines have been updated for compliance with a United States court decision regarding buttons, external links, and other calls to action in apps," Apple said in a statement.

These changes come as a result of a recent ruling by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who found that Apple violated her 2021 ruling for Epic Games' lawsuit against Apple. Back then, she ordered Apple to allow developers to direct users to other payment systems that would let them avoid paying the company a 30 percent cut.

However, Apple still took a 27 percent cut from external purchases, prompting Epic Games to accuse the company of non-compliance in a new legal filing last year. Apple also showed users a "scare screen" when they try to make external purchases, discouraging them from using third-party payment systems. In addition to ordering Apple to stop collecting fees from purchases made outside the App Store, Gonzalez Rogers also prohibited Apple from creating rules that would prevent developers from presenting customers with buttons and links for external payments

In response, Epic chief Tim Sweeney announced that Fortnite will be coming back to iOS next week. He also said that the video game company will bring back Fortnite on iOS for everyone and will drop all litigation regarding the issue if Apple adopts the no-commission policy worldwide, but that doesn't seem to be the case for now. Other companies are now also looking to roll out updates that would allow them to bypass Apple's commission for external payments. One of them is Spotify, which announced that it had already submitted an update that would allow customers in the US to pay outside the App Store. 

Epic Games just announced some changes to its store that should please budding developers. The company will not charge a commission of any kind for the first $1,000,000 in revenue from an app per year. Once a piece of software goes past that threshold, Epic will begin taking its standard rate of 12 percent. The policy goes into effect in June.

This sounds like a real boon for smaller devs, especially when you consider that Steam takes 30 percent of sales as commission. Apple isn’t a direct competitor here, but the App Store takes 15 percent on the first million in revenue. This increases to 30 percent once that metric is met.

Epic also announced something called webshops, which sounds like a way for developers to avoid Apple’s App Store fees. These shops are powered by the Epic Games Store and offer customers "out-of-app purchases, as a more cost-effective alternative to in-app purchases." These stores will be available next month "on any platform that allows it," though that now includes iOS devices in both the EU and the US.

The company will begin offering a bonus of five percent in Epic Rewards to lure customers to these webshops. This will be applicable to all purchases, though the company hasn’t said if it's a limited time offer.

Epic is able to do this whole webshop thing because it just won a case against long-time foe Apple. A California court just ordered Apple to stop collecting fees for purchases made outside of the App Store.

The ruling also means that Fortnite is coming back to Apple devices in the US next week. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has stated that the company would return the game to the App Store worldwide, so long as Apple extends the court’s ruling across all countries. The company will also drop all pending litigation on the topic. He’s calling it a "peace plan," but Apple has yet to respond.

Pinterest is fighting back against the onslaught of AI slop that is increasingly clogging up its platform following complaints from users. From now on, you’ll be able to see when image Pins that appear in your feed have been either generated or modified using AI. When users click on an image Pin in close-up they’ll see an “AI modified” label in the bottom left-hand corner.

In a blog post published this week, Pinterest says it has been testing the new feature for several months, which involves analysing the metadata of an image to assess its source. It says it’s also developing classifiers that can automatically detect the whiff of generative AI even when metadata markers are absent. How successful it is in doing so will become clear as the new features roll out globally, and creators who suspect their content has been mislabelled will be able to appeal.

Such mislabelling has been an ongoing issue for Meta, which was forced to adjust the wording of the AI labels it applied to uploaded photos on Facebook and Instagram after photographers complained they were being added to images that hadn’t been created using AI. Apparently, even minimal use of the generative fill tool in Photoshop was enough to trigger a label. That’s something that Pinterest will likely want to look out for as it hones this new algorithm.

In addition to the new labels, Pinterest says it’s experimenting with a feature that would allow users to filter out categories where AI modification or generation is particularly prevalent, such as beauty and art. By letting its users have more control over what appears on their feed, Pinterest is clearly hoping it can win back the growing number of disgruntled members in its community.

One day after Meta rolled out its standalone AI app, Mark Zuckerberg has shared more about how the company plans to eventually monetize its generative AI assistant. During the company’s first quarter earnings call, Zuckerberg said Meta AI could one day show ads and product recommendations. He also hinted at plans for a subscription component for those who want a more “premium” version of the assistant.

"I think that there will be a large opportunity to show product recommendations or ads, as well as a premium service for people who want to unlock more compute for additional functionality or intelligence,” Zuckerberg said.

He added that for now the company is more focused on growing Meta AI’s usage. (He announced yesterday that Meta Ai had reached “almost” 1 billion monthly users.) “I expect that we're going to be largely focused on scaling and deepening engagement for at least the next year before we'll really be ready to start building out the business here,” he said.

Zuckerberg’s comments — just one day after Meta introduced its standalone AI app — underscores how important the assistant is to the company. The Facebook founder has repeatedly said he wants Meta AI to be the most used AI assistant in the world, and he said on Wednesday’s call that a standalone app would be particularly important for attracting US users.

Meta’s strategy for monetizing the assistant in many ways mirrors its approach to Threads, which only just began expanding its early experiments with ads this month long after it reached hundreds of millions of users. Speaking of Threads, Zuckerberg also shared some new milestones for Threads, saying that text-based app now has 350 million monthly active users and that time spent on the platform has increased 35 percent over the last six months thanks to improvements to the company’s recommendations systems.

Later in the call, Meta’s CFO Susan Li shared that the company has also been testing its Llama model to power Threads’ recommendations and that the addition of the large language model has led to a 4 percent increase in time spent. “It remains early here, but a big focus this year will be on exploring how we can deploy this for other content types, including photos and videos,” she said.

A Snapchat redesign test appears to have stalled after power users seemingly disliked the "simplified" layout.

The new version of Snapchat intended "to help new and casual users" navigate the app, according to Snap’s Q1 investor letter, released on April 29. As reported by TechCrunch, the overhauled app removed the Snap Map and Stories tabs. A proposed new three-tab navigation bar focused on chat, the camera and Spotlight (Snapchat’s answer to TikTok.) The report doesn’t specify how long the testing phase went on for or how widespread it was.

For now at least, Snap is seemingly reconsidering. "Our most engaged Snapchatters consistently demonstrated a preference for a five-tab layout," the company wrote in that same investor letter. While it does not specifically say it's ending tests of the simplified version, Snap notes it has "begun testing a refined five-tab interface that combines the best of both approaches." Engadget reached out to Snap for comment on if this layout is no longer being deployed to users. We’ll update this article if we receive a response.

Snap has a pretty rough track record where redesigns are concerned. In 2017 the company tried to reorient its flagship app around separating friend-related posts from media content; in the year that followed, Snapchat lost three million daily users in the space of three months. At that time there were also well-documented issues with the Android version of the app.

The latest earnings report revealed that Snap lost one million users in North America in Q1, down to 99 million from 100 million in the previous quarter. Despite this, the global Snapchat community grew to 460 million in Q1, an increase of 7 million daily active users quarter-over-quarter.

Firefox now lets you organize your tabs. Four years after its biggest rivals launched tab groups, Mozilla published a nearly 1,000-word blog post recounting the feature's long road from user requests to launch. (Consider skipping it if you don’t like long-winded acceptance speeches.) "What happens when 4,500 people ask for the same feature?" the company asked rhetorically. "At Firefox, we build it."

Of course, those users may have requested tab groups partly because Firefox was the only major browser without them. Chrome, Safari and Edge launched tab groups in 2021. Hell, Vivaldi has had them since 2016.

Tardiness aside, Firefox users will welcome the chance to tidy up the clutter. The feature lets you drag and drop tabs into groups and label them by name or color. Mozilla says tab groups are on-device and never uploaded to the cloud. "Tab groups aren't just about decluttering," Firefox product manager Stefan Smagula said. "It's about reclaiming your flow and finding focus again."

Up next for Firefox tabs: The tech industry's favorite buzzword. Mozilla is testing smart tab groups, powered by AI, which suggest names and groups based on your open tabs.

As Meta’s first-ever generative AI conference gets underway, the company is also previewing a significant update on its plans to bring AI features to WhatsApp chats. Buried in its LlamaCon updates, the company shared that it’s working on something called “Private Processing,” which will allow users to take advantage of generative AI capabilities within WhatsApp without eroding its privacy features.

According to Meta, Private Processing is an “optional capability” that will enable people to “leverage AI capabilities for things like summarizing unread messages or refining them, while keeping messages private.” WhatsApp, of course, is known for its strong privacy protections and end-to-end encryption. That would seem incompatible with cloud-based AI features like Meta AI. But Private Processing will essentially allow Meta to do both.

Meta has shared more details about how it will accomplish this over on its engineering blog but, as Wired points out, it’s a similar model as Apple’s Private Cloud Compute (which allows the iPhone maker to implement Apple AI without sending all your data to the cloud). Here’s how Meta describes its approach.

We’re excited to share an initial overview of Private Processing, a new technology we’ve built to support people’s needs and aspirations to leverage AI in a secure and privacy-preserving way. This confidential computing infrastructure, built on top of a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), will make it possible for people to direct AI to process their requests — like summarizing unread WhatsApp threads or getting writing suggestions — in our secure and private cloud environment. In other words, Private Processing will allow users to leverage powerful AI features, while preserving WhatsApp’s core privacy promise, ensuring no one except you and the people you’re talking to can access or share your personal messages, not even Meta or WhatsApp.

The company seems well-aware such a plan will likely be met with skepticism. WhatsApp is regularly targeted by bad actors as it is. To address inevitable concerns from the security community, the company says it will allow security researchers and others to audit Private Processing, and will make the technology part of its bug bounty program that rewards people who find security vulnerabilities in its services.

It’s not clear when generative AI features may actually be available in WhatsApp chats — the company describes its announcement today as merely a “first look” at the technology — but it does note that Private Processing and “similar infrastructure” could have use cases beyond its messaging app.

Meta didn't wait for Tuesday's LlamaCon keynote to unveil its first big AI announcement of the week. The company launched a standalone app that competes with ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and other multimodal AI chatbots. Sticking to the company’s roots, the app also includes a social feed and the ability to draw on info from your profile and posts you’ve shared.

The Meta AI app offers similar features to rival chatbots, including text and voice chats, live web access and the ability to generate and edit images. But it also includes a Discover feed that (for better or worse) adds a social element to your AI queries. The company describes it as "a place to share and explore how others are using AI." It highlights the prompts that others share and lets you "remix them to make them your own."

Meta stresses that none of your private chats will post to others' feeds unless you explicitly choose to share them.

Meta

For users in the US and Canada, Meta AI can personalize its answers based on data you've shared with Meta products. This includes info like your social profile and content you like or engage with. The company says linking your Facebook and Instagram accounts to the same Meta AI account will provide "an even stronger personalized experience." If you don't want that, this might be a good time to check your privacy settings.

The app has a live conversation mode for users in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Much like a similar feature in ChatGPT and Gemini, Meta’s version lets you and the AI assistant listen and speak simultaneously, with a natural flow that should feel more like a real conversation. However, Meta only describes it as a demo that provides "a glimpse into the future," suggesting it's still in an early stage. This mode also doesn't offer live web access.

Meta

The Meta AI web version includes the app's new features, including voice interactions and the Discover feed. This version has a few differences, including enhanced image generation (more presets and new editing modes for style, mood, lighting and colors). The web version also lets you test a rich document editor (in some countries) that can spit out text- and image-rich docs to export as PDFs.

The app has merged with the Meta View companion app for the company's Ray-Ban glasses collab. The company says it will include a handoff feature that lets you start a conversation on the glasses and then access it in your history tab on the app or web. After installing the update, you can manage your glasses in the Meta AI app's Devices tab.

You can download the new Meta AI app from the App Store and Google Play.