It may be more difficult for hackers and other intruders to grab your iCloud data. Apple is introducing a trio of security measures that include Advanced Data Protection, an optional feature that applies end-to-end encryption to more iCloud data. While Apple was already protecting 14 data categories, the new offering protects 23 — including iCloud device backups, photos and notes. Your calendar, contacts and iCloud Mail are still unencrypted to support global systems.
Advanced Data Protection is available to try in the US today as part of the Apple Beta Software Program. Americans will have broader access by the end of 2022. Other countries will have access sometime in early 2023. You'll have to set up an alternative recovery method if you enable the technology, as Apple won't have the keys needed to salvage your data.
It’s been a bumper year for gaming on the go. For a spell, it kinda felt like Nintendo was the only name in town, but it’s since become one of the more exciting corners of gaming. Today, there are handheld options for everything from AAA to Indie to retro and beyond. Whatsmore, the current generation of mobile processors means we’re seeing surprisingly capable hardware. The main problem, now, is that the software side of things hasn’t quite caught up. There’s perhaps no better demonstration of this than the Ayaneo Air Pro: a stellar example of what can be done, and what needs improving, in the burgeoning handheld PC world.
If you’re not familiar with Ayaneo, that’s understandable. The company hasn’t been around all that long, but it’s already making a name for itself thanks to remarkably good hardware that brings PC gaming into the portable realm. If you imagine a Steam Deck, but with Windows and a fraction of the size, you wouldn’t be far off.
Before we dive into the gaming experience, the hardware itself is worth a closer look. The Air Pro is impressively well made. It has a similar footprint to Nintendo’s Switch Lite, but it’s thicker (.85 vs .55 inches) and heavier (.88lbs vs .55). In terms of build quality, honestly the Ayaneo feels far superior. The Hall effect analog sticks and triggers are smooth with a nice amount of travel. The D-pad is responsive and the buttons are the right kind of snappy. The centerpiece is the stunning 5.5-inch OLED display - a first on Windows gaming handheld Ayaneo is fond of reminding us. It’s a delight to hold and feels premium in almost every regard. Even the fingerprint reader in the power button somehow adds a dash of sophistication.
James Trew / Engadget
As this is basically a PC, there are quite a few different configurations available. Some using AMD’s 5560U chipset and others running the 5825U with assorted amounts of RAM and storage depending on your budget. And you will need a sizable budget as you’ll soon find out.
The Air Pro doesn’t quite have the grunt of Valve’s venerable Steam Deck, but it does run Windows 11 out of the box and can run a surprising amount of high-end games in a more-than-playable fashion. And while the Steam Deck outguns it in terms of processing power, the Air Pro is legitimately portable without too much of a performance tradeoff.
Beyond size and the internals, the other main difference is price. Valve’s handheld tops out at $650 for the 512GB version while the Air Pro starts at $699 (5560U/16GB RAM/512GB storage). You can bring that figure right up to $1,399 if you want the faster silicon, 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage - that’s obviously quite spendy. The model we tested was somewhere between middle and top with the superior processor, 16GB of RAM and 1TB storage (though all models have expandable memory via a microSD card slot).
There are other gaming handhelds that run Windows, but many are too underpowered to handle a lot of bigger games. Anbernic’s Win600, for example, runs on an older AMD Athlon Silver 3050e chipset with Radeon Vega 3 graphics. This is a significant step down, but then the Win600 only costs $375. Ayn’s Odin can also run Windows, but the ARM-based version which brings with it some compatibility issues. GPD has been in this space for a while, but its Win 3 is looking a little underpowered now (though its Win 4 is coming this month and it looks suitably beefy).
Perhaps most tellingly there are manymore handhelds in the works from companies like Ayn, the aforementioned GPD and others. There’s even a new flagship from the company itself, the Ayaneo 2, that really should cause potential Steam Deck buyers some headaches. These un-released models all have something in common: AMD’s 6800U chipset. It seems there was always an appetite for PC gaming on the go, just we didn’t quite have the required hardware to run it. Until recently.
Technical limitations are one thing, but there’s another more philosophical question that needs answering: Why make a pocketable PC when you can stream a lot of AAA games without the need for expensive, power hungry dedicated hardware? While it’s true streaming is more viable than ever, that approach requires that you have a console or gaming PC in the first place or a subscription to something like GeForce Now or Xbox Cloud which isn’t economically favorable for many folks (not to mention the libraries might not have what you want). Not to mention its dependence on a network connection - good luck with that on in-flight WiFi.
James Trew / Engadget
Which brings us back to the real issue: Windows isn’t ready to be used on tiny screens and neither are many of the games that run on it. Ayaneo has tried hard to ameliorate this issue by adding its own launcher called Ayaspace. It serves as a front-end for all your games and manages to provide a vague console-like experience. But it’s not long before the spell is broken and you find yourself using an analog stick as a mouse trying to log-in to Steam and then using a tiny onscreen keyboard to peck out your credentials.
Ayaneo has at least tried to solve some of these inevitable problems. The Air Pro, for example, has two buttons along the top (between LB and RB) that will pull up the onscreen keyboard, double for ESC and other essential Windows shortcuts to make navigating bearable. But you will likely need to plug in a mouse and keyboard at some point just to get something simple done.
It’ll also soon become apparent that AAA games weren’t necessarily made with a small screen in mind. For the most part, games look incredible on the Air Pro’s OLED display. Even when playing games at 720p (the display is 1080p) they still look incredible - but it’s often a necessary tradeoff for performance. You will likely find yourself wishing that display was just a little bit bigger. Not least to get rid of those bezels, but just for general quality of life.
Not least for games where there’s a lot of text. Titles like Disco Elysium, for example, have a lot of written dialog - and while it’s easy enough to read for the most part, it’s noticeably more fatiguing than if you were on a desktop. Thankfully, the display is sharp and the resolution is high enough that it’s all still very legible, but there’s just that vague sense of a UI that wasn’t built for a display of this size.
James Trew / Engadget
If you’re thinking “Why not just run SteamOS on it” you wouldn’t be alone. It’s been done with varying degrees of success. The bigger issue might just come down to the practicality (millions of games available, wide hardware support) and reach of Windows. There are some more mundane challenges with SteamOS that don’t make it a shoo-in replacement for these handhelds. Primarily, game compatibility. If it’s not available on Steam, you can probably still install it on SteamOS but it might involve flipping to desktop mode or other workarounds which breaks the “console” experience you might have been seeking in the first place.
More importantly, some users are actually reporting better battery life with Windows on the Steam Deck despite expecting it to be worse. The claims are that it’s broadly equivalent but in some cases even better than Valve’s native operating system thanks to a combination of factors. PC gaming has a lot of variables, so this isn’t necessarily that surprising. This isn’t always going to be the case, but it’s at least not a strong incentive for making SteamOS the go-to platform for portable PC gaming.
Battery life is especially important with a handheld and it would be a lie to say it’s something that the Ayaneo Air Pro excels at. Or even does adequately at. Depending on what you’re playing and the power drain - usually called TDP – required for it to run satisfactorily. More demanding games will need a TDP of 12 Watts or above and you can hope for about an hour and 45 minutes battery life at this intensity. Some games can run just fine at 8W which will extend play time to around 2.3 hours. You can get over three hours of life on the lowest 5W setting but this won’t be enough for anything but the lightest of games but it’s good for general setup tasks and the like.
Needless to say, this isn’t ideal for a handheld, especially as your battery pack likely won’t cut it - unless it can deliver 65W, which most can’t.
In short, the Ayaneo Air Pro represents a lot of hope and shines a light on some challenges. Hope in that true PC gaming on the go in a pocket-friendly format and on fantastic hardware, feels like it might finally be here. It’s the challenges that are a little more complicated. Windows has a lot of advantages, but also plenty of practical drawbacks. Whether it’s a case of adapting the hardware around these, or just a matter of a smart software overlay is being figured out in real time it seems.
James Trew / Engadget
Making a truly “console” experience will require some clever thinking and equally clever software. Ayaneo, for its part, is also working on its own Ayaneo OS that’s Linux-based like SteamOS. Whether this will resolve some of the challenges remains to be seen, but it’s clearly something that’s being worked on. But that just accounts for one company. With other manufacturers with ties to Windows like GPD there’s a risk of ending up with a mishmash of approaches. Hopefully, though, with more competition comes more innovation (or more ideas to be “borrowed”).
For some, the exciting part is to finally have more options to enjoy high-end gaming away from the PC. Not everyone is looking to spend more time at a desktop, or maybe you just want to scratch that Elden-itch while waiting for a flight. Whatever your preference, things are about to get a lot more interesting.
If you've been looking to pick up a smart display, today looks like a decent time to take the plunge, as Walmart has our favorite option on the market, Google's Nest Hub, down to $39. That's the lowest price we've seen to date for the second-gen model. Notably, the discount includes a basic Philips Wiz smart bulb for no extra cost. For context, the 7-inch smart display technically has an MSRP of $99, though we frequently see it on sale for $50. The deal covers both the "chalk" and "charcoal" versions of the display, but the former looks to be out of stock as of this writing.
We gave the second-gen Nest Hub a review score of 89 when it launched last year, and it's currently a top pick in our guide to the best smart displays. Like Amazon's Echo Show devices, it's mainly there for those who like using a voice assistant to pull up the weather, control smart home gear, stream music and videos, display recipes in the kitchen and so on. Its chief advantage over Amazon's devices is, unsurprisingly, its tighter integration with Google services: If much of your life is organized in Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Photos, or if you use other Google-owned gear like Nest doorbells and thermostats, using the Google Assistant to access those things here will be far more convenient. We've also found the Google Assistant to be a little more capable than Alexa at answering web queries.
As a piece of hardware, the Nest Hub isn't blazingly fast, nor is its 1,024 x 600 resolution display especially sharp. Still, its built-in speakers and microphones do the job, and its soft fabric design should blend naturally into most rooms. Its 7-inch frame is a natural fit on a bedside table or bathroom counter, and while it lacks a built-in camera, that may be a good thing for those who want an added sense of privacy. The device can also provide a modicum of sleep tracking, though we wouldn't call that necessary for most, and Google plans to charge extra for the feature in the coming months. Nevertheless, the Nest Hub provides a strong mix of price and functionality for those who aren't already hitched to Alexa, and this deal only furthers that.
Microsoft Teams is now useful for organizing more than just your company meetings. Microsoft has introduced a communities feature on Android and iOS that effectively offers an alternative to Facebook groups for more personal uses — think of your softball team, a carpooling group or the local parent-teacher association. You can chat and make video calls, of course, but you can also arrange events, post messages and share documents.
As on Facebook, owners can moderate communities by setting rules and removing people or content. You can create both virtual and real-world events. If someone wants to join, you can invite them through email, phone numbers or scannable QR codes.
Communities in Teams are only available on mobile for now, but Microsoft says they'll reach the desktop "soon" and that you only need the free app. In 2023, Microsoft will offer access to SignUpGenius to help you coordinate fundraisers and other good causes by helping you enlist volunteers and otherwise planning events.
The community hub expansion may seem odd, but it reflects a gradual shift away from Teams' original role as a pure workplace collaboration tool and more as a general-purpose chat and socialization app. It became free for personal use last year, and recently received casual games to help break the ice with colleagues. This newest addition ventures even farther afield — Microsoft isn't really creating a social network, but it is hoping to take over some of those duties.
Amazon's Echo Show 15 is now useful as a tiny TV. The company has released a promised free update that brings the Fire TV interface to the smart display. As on other devices, you can stream from a range of apps (including Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube) with an on-screen carousel that helps you find content and resume shows. This will be familiar to anyone who's used even a basic Fire TV Stick, but the Echo Show's design offers a few interface twists.
You can use Alexa to open apps or stream specific content, and use either a paired Alexa Voice Remote or the controls in the mobile Fire TV app to navigate without smudging the screen. However, there's also a virtual remote on the Echo Show 15 itself. You won't need a separate controller for those apps that don't recognize touch.
The Echo Show 15 normally costs $250, but Amazon is sweetening the deal to mark the Fire TV launch. A new "limited time" bundle includes both the display and an Alexa Voice Remote for $195. Existing Echo Show owners, meanwhile, can buy the remote for $10 ($20 off) through the touchscreen.
As we explained in our review, the Echo Show 15 still isn't for everyone. The camera and speakers are merely so-so, and there's still only a limited range of widgets. With that said, the Fire TV expansion may go a long way toward justifying the design. This may be a viable option for a kitchen or bedroom TV, particularly if you'd also like to see the family calendar or the weather.
The Echo Show 5 is one of Amazon's most versatile Alexa devices thanks to its 5.5-inch display, it's relatively solid sound quality and it's compact size. The online retailer discounted the smart display to $35 for the holiday shopping season, but it also has a deal on a bundle that would make a good smart-home starter kit. You can pick up the Echo Show 5 with a Blink Mini for a total of $50, which is 58 percent off the normal price of the bundle.
Amazon last updated the Echo Show 5 in 2021, giving it a 2-megapixel front camera that will slightly improve the quality of your video chats. Otherwise, not much about the Show 5 has changed since it originally came out — but that's not a bad thing. The Alexa-powered display has decent audio quality for its size, and it has onboard volume controls along with a mic-mute button and a physical camera shutter for when you need extra privacy.
The Show 5 is the smallest smart display in Amazon's lineup and it makes an excellent alarm clock thanks to its ambient light sensor, which adjusts the screen's brightness based on the light levels in the room, and its sunrise alarm feature. The latter slowly brightens the display before you're due to wake up to wake you more naturally from sleep. You can also tap to snooze your alarm, a feature that's unique to the Echo Show 5 (other Amazon smart displays don't have it).
Pairing the Show 5 with the Blink Mini can give you a better view of your home. Blink's smallest security camera may not be wireless like the rest of its gadgets, but it still records 1080p video and supports motion alerts and two-way audio. Once you plug it in, it'll watch over the inside of your home and you can use the Echo Show 5 to check out its camera feed from another part of the house. And like other Blink cameras, the Mini can also send motion alerts to your phone, so you can check in anytime from anywhere. This $50 bundle gives you both gadgets at the best prices we've seen, making it a good starter set for anyone who wants to make their home a bit smarter. If you're looking for a larger display that also provides even better sound quality, the same bundle with the Echo Show 8 and a Blink Mini is also on sale for $85.
Apple Music has introduced a Sing feature, best described as a karaoke mode. Not only can you adjust the voice levels, but you can also use multiple lyric views if you’re looking to share a duet or even just wail harmonize in the background. Apple has tweaked existing lyric views, so they’re now cued to the beat and light up slowly.
The company says "tens of millions" of tracks will get the feature in December on the new Apple TV 4K, as well as recent iPhones (iPhone 11 and later) and iPads (including last year's ninth-generation model). Competitor Spotify already has a singing mode, but it’s more for rating your vocal skills. Apple told Engadget its feature doesn't use microphones at all – so all you need to worry about is family members recording you during your rendition of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.”
– Mat Smith
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The long-running squabble between Amazon and HBO appears to be over. Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery have returned HBO Max to Prime Video Channels in the US. For $15 per month, you'll have access to House of the Dragon and other HBO shows within Prime Video – and you won't have to manage separate apps or subscriptions. This will also provide access to the unified HBO Max and Discovery+ service (possibly called Max) when it goes live in 2023.
Apple's Self Service Repair program has arrived in eight European countries. Using it, you can perform many of the most common fixes on the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups, along with MacBooks with Apple silicon – that is, non-Intel models. If you'd rather not purchase a tool for a one-time repair, you can rent a kit for a week at £54.90 (€59.95). You can send back replaced parts for refurbishment and recycling and potentially receive a credit. A few examples of part prices include a battery module for £70.78 (€77.04) and a camera module for £168.55 (€192.76).
It's available in new Renault Austral Hybrid's and Megane E-Tech EVs.
Waze is France's most popular navigation app, to the point that it was recently updated with three regional accents (Toulouse, Provençal and Ch'ti). So it makes sense that Waze partnered with French automaker Renault to launch a new, dedicated version of the app for cars. Sure, you can use Waze on Android Auto by installing it as an app from your smartphone. What's different is Renault drivers can now install the app directly to the infotainment system – and won’t need a phone to use it.
More car news as Bloomberg sources say Apple’s EV, codenamed Project Titan, is no longer a fully self-driving machine. It will reportedly have a conventional wheel and pedals and will 'only' drive itself on highways. The company has also pushed the launch back by a year to 2026, according to those sources. The vehicle may offer enough autonomy for you to play games or watch videos on the highway, but it’ll ask you to take control to drive on city streets or in adverse weather.
Bandai Namco announced that a free multiplayer-focused update will go live later today. The Colosseum update will open up the titular arenas in Limgrave, Leyndell and Caelid, where players can battle it out in "duels, free-for-alls and team fights," according to a YouTube video description. The colosseums have been in the game since launch, but were inaccessible. There aren’t a lot of details about the update, but having dedicated arenas for player-versus-player (PvP) battles should freshen things up for those who like to duke it out against other humans in Elden Ring. The trailer showed off some three vs. three combat as well. The video also includes text stating that players can "join forces to fight for the Elden Ring." That suggests there will be more robust co-op options, too.
Many smartphones these days offer artificial bokeh in their portrait photography modes, but with the help of a retractable camera, you can achieve true optical bokeh without missing any edges. Chinese brand Tecno is now bringing such a feature to its latest flagship device, the Phantom X2 Pro 5G, which packs a "world-first" pop-out portrait lens. This is just a little over two years after Xiaomi showed off a retractable 120mm-equivalent wide aperture lens, but it never left the prototype stage.
Tecno's intriguing portrait camera has a 50-megapixel resolution with a relatively large 1/2.7-inch sensor and 1.28um pixel size. Optically, this 2.5x zoom lens offers an f/1.49 aperture, 65mm focal length and 18.9cm depth of field. When you switch to portrait mode in the camera app, you can see (and hear) the portrait lens physically pop out on the back of the phone. This is complemented with Tecno's "self-developed" beautification mode with upgraded make-up settings — up to three faces are supported in each image.
I had a chance to shoot some portraits with my Phantom X2 Pro 5G earlier today, and with the exception of the aggressive skin smoothing, my subjects were quite pleased with the natural bokeh, optimized brightness and virtually non-existent distortion.
Richard Lai/Engadget
There's more on this amusingly large camera island. The 50-megapixel main shooter uses Samsung's 1/1.3-inch GNV ISOCELL 3.0 sensor, which offers 1.2um pixel size and is supported with an f/1.85 aperture. You'll also find a 13-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera nearby, as well as a 32-megapixel front camera on the other side of the phone — in the form of a punch-hole near the top of the curved 6.8-inch AMOLED screen (2,400 x 1,080 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate; Gorilla Glass Victus).
The Phantom X2 Pro 5G is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9000, which is a 4nm octa-core processor — similar to the faster Dimensity 9000+ found in ASUS' ROG Phone 6D series. It also packs 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage, along with a generous 5,160mAh battery with 45W fast charging support. While this phone lacks an IP rating, a company rep claimed that the retractable portrait lens is waterproof and dustproof — the interior of the lens is apparently sealed, and likewise with the connection between the lens and the body. Still, it's probably best to avoid the water when you're carrying this device.
Tecno's new phone runs on a customized Android 12 system dubbed HiOS 12, which features an AI gallery with face recognition and editing functions, along with some productivity tools (built-in translator, file scanner with text and PDF conversion etc.) and a connection speed optimization engine. Tecno added that its device passed TÜV Rheinland's fluency test over a 36-month simulation, meaning its storage memory performance shouldn't deteriorate much (read: fragmentation) during the same period in real life; but we'll take this claim with a pinch of salt for now.
Tecno will initially be launching the Phantom X2 Pro 5G in markets including India, Nigeria, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Turkey, and the Philippines from the end of December, and it'll reach over 60 markets globally later (we're waiting for specific details on Western markets). The device will be available in "Stardust Grey" and "Mars Orange," with the latter featuring an eco-friendly back cover composed of plastics recovered from the shores around the Indian Ocean. Tecno claims that this "Eco-Friendly Edition" reduces carbon emissions by approximately 38 percent when compared to virgin plastics, "with each individual cover producing an estimated 2.4g fewer emissions on average."
If you manage to come across a Phantom X2 Pro, the asking price is around $930 (based on the 3,499 Riyal price tag in Saudi Arabia), which is probably difficult to justify for just some natural bokeh. There's also the Phantom X2 which is around $215 cheaper and looks very similar, but it only has 8GB of RAM and lacks a retractable portrait camera; you'll instead get a 64-megapixel main camera and a 2-megapixel depth camera, along with the same 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera and 32-megapixel front camera as the Pro model. The orange option is also replaced by a "Moonlight White" design.
In late November, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors has approved a proposal that would allow the city's police force to use remote-controlled robots as a deadly force option when faced with violent or armed suspects. The supervisors voted 8-to-3 in favor of making it a new policy despite opposition by civil rights groups, but now they seem to have had a change of heart. During the second of two required votes before a policy can be sent to the mayor's office for final approval, the board voted 8-to-3 to explicitly ban the use of lethal force by police robots. As San Francisco Chronicle notes, this about-face is pretty unusual, as the board's second votes are typically just formalities that echo the first ones' results.
The San Francisco Police Department made the proposal after a law came into effect requiring California officials to define the authorized uses of their military-grade equipment. It would have allowed cops to equip robots with explosives "to contact, incapacitate, or disorient violent, armed, or dangerous suspects." Authorities could only use the robots for lethal force after they've exhausted all other possibilities, and a high-ranking official would have to approve their deployment. However, critics are concerned that the machines could be abused.
Dean Preston, one of the supervisors who oppose the use of robots as a deadly force option, said the policy will "place Black and brown people in disproportionate danger of harm or death." In a newer statement made after the board's second vote, Preston said: "There have been more killings at the hands of police than any other year on record nationwide. We should be working on ways to decrease the use of force by local law enforcement, not giving them new tools to kill people."
While the supervisors voted to ban the use of lethal force by police robots — for now, anyway — they also sent the original policy proposing the use of killer robots back for review. The board's Rules Committee could now amend it further to have stricter rules for use of bomb-equipped robots, or it could scrap the old proposal altogether.
Apple is expanding developers’ options for pricing their App Store apps. The company announced 700 new price points and tools today in what it describes as the App Store's biggest pricing upgrade in its 14-year history. Additionally, devs can now set regional costs automatically in response to exchange rates.
The App Store’s new structure lets developers choose from 900 price points for their apps, nearly 10 times what was previously available. Pricing now starts at $0.29 and can go as high as $10,000 upon request. (If you’re old enough to remember the I Am Rich app, you can imagine that developer salivating over this higher cap.) Additionally, app prices can now go up incrementally across different ranges. For example, they can now increase every $0.10 up to $10, every $0.50 between $10 and $50 and so on.
Apple is also adding different pricing conventions for all 175 regional storefronts. Deves can now use two repeating digits (like ₩110,000) and rounded dollar amounts ($10.00 instead of $9.99).
The update also makes it easier for devs to deal with global exchange rates. Apple uses the example of a Japanese game developer who gets most of their business from Japanese customers. Now they can set their price for the Japan storefront and see global pricing change automatically based on exchange and tax rates. Previously, developers had to do that manually.
Apple says the new pricing structure is available today for apps offering auto-renewable subscriptions. They will arrive for all other apps and in-app purchases in the spring of 2023.
