We’re prepping for Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference! This week, Cherlynn and Devindra chat about the announcements they’re expecting at WWDC, including new computers with M2 chips (and potentially a revamped MacBook Air!). What’s next for iOS and MacOS – will lockscreen widgets really be useful? And they hold out hope to hear something about the company’s AR/VR glasses. Also, they discuss the surprising news about Sheryl Sandberg leaving Meta, as well as Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop Go 2.

Listen above, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!

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Topics

• What to expect at WWDC 2022 – 1:29

• Could Apple AR Glasses make an appearance? Some rumors – 2:30

• Possible news on iPhone 14, iOS 16, iPadOS, and WatchOS – 14:10

• Youtube’s TV app now lets you use your phone as a second screen – 30:15

• Surface Laptop Go 2 announcement – 33:19

• Sheryl Sandberg leaves Facebook after 14 years – 36:23

• France bans English e-sports terminology – 42:33

• Working on – 44:22

• Pop culture picks – 52:38

Livestream

Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos
Graphic artists: Luke Brooks and Brian Oh

I’ve started testing the waters writing this newsletter (and several other stories) on an iPad, with keyboard folio, of course. And it works surprisingly well, if not perfectly. Apple’s journey in getting its tablets to dip into the world of laptops has taken a while, but it’s almost there.

Now, a report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman suggests Apple will push iPadOS even further in version 16, with some software changes apparently nudging the device further in that direction.

Gurman's sources say iPadOS 16 will have a revamped multitasking interface, including more resizing options. Currently, you can run apps in full screen or side by side in Split View. The Slide Over function allows you to bring in a narrower version of a third app as well. The next version of iPadOS will make it easier to move between apps and see which ones you have open. That may even include freely resizable windows in iPadOS, which sounds like a dull, dull upgrade, but it’s exactly what I need when flitting between web browsers, Google Docs and Slack windows. Please, give me what I want, WWDC.

— Mat Smith

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• Capcom's 'Resident Evil 4' remake lands on March 24th, 2023

Amazon takes on PS5 and Xbox scalpers with a new invite system

The goal is to help legitimate shoppers get their hands on in-demand products. 

Amazon is trying to fend off scalpers and bots that snag all the latest consoles before you can secure one. It's rolling out an invite-based ordering option for high-demand products in low supply to help legitimate shoppers get their hands on the items. The invite option is available now for PS5 in the US. Amazon will enable it for Xbox Series X in the next few days.

Continue reading.

The best wireless headphones you can buy right now

And not all of them will break the bank.

Engadget

Updated for mid-2022: We’ve collated the best wireless headphones — some of which are the best headphones, period. For this guide, we’ve focused on the over-ear style, covering a range of prices, so you can decide how much you’re comfortable spending.

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Chipotle now accepts cryptocurrency payments

As long as your wallet app supports a Flexa digital payments platform.

You can now pay for your burritos and tacos with Bitcoin and other digital currencies, as long as you don't mind spending your coins directly instead of going through exchanges. Flexa has announced that the Mexican fast-food chain can now accept digital payments through its platform at all Chipotle locations in the US if have a Flexa-enabled wallet app enabled, such as Gemini.

Continue reading.​​

'Street Fighter 6' arrives in 2023 with new modes and real-time commentary

It also features simple controls for special moves.

Capcom

Capcom has revealed that Street Fighter 6 will come out in 2023 for the PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Like the company promised earlier, the game will include Luke, a key DLC character for Street Fighter V, as well as fan favorites Ryu and Chun-Li.

There also seems to be an open-world aspect to the game, but one of the most intriguing new features is real-time commentary, which will provide easy-to-understand explanations about gameplay for your matches. These commentaries will be voiced by notable Fighting Game Community commentators, starting with Jeremy "Vicious" Lopez and Aru, and they'll support subtitles in 13 languages.

Continue reading.

'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' will hit Disney+ on June 22nd

That's just 47 days after the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe film debuted in theaters.

You won't need to wait much longer to catch the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe movie at home. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will start streaming on Disney+ on June 22nd — roughly a month and a half since its debut.

Continue reading.

Another food app has been caught sharing location data without asking. As CBC Newsreports, Canadian privacy authorities have determined that restaurant chain Tim Hortons collected "granular" location data through its mobile app without valid consent between May 2019 and August 2020. The coffee-and-donut giant was supposed to be using positional info from its partner Radar Labs for targeted ads, but the app was gathering locations as frequently as every few minutes, whether or not the app was open — even if you'd explicitly limited that collection through settings.

Investigators also found that there weren't enough contractual protections for the personal data Radar processed. The clauses were "vague and permissive" enough that Radar could have used sensitive content for its own purposes, according to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. While Radar would have needed to anonymize the data, officials said the contract still wasn't strong enough to adequately protect users' data.

The investigation came soon after Financial Post journalist James McLeod wrote a story revealing the extent of Tim Hortons' location-gathering practices. The app checked McLeod's location over 2,700 times in less than five months, including when he traveled to Morocco. The piece prompted multiple class action lawsuits.

The privacy offices noted that Tim Hortons' real-world data use was "very limited," and that restaurant operator TDL Group agreed to delete relevant data alongside its partners. The company also agreed to create a privacy management program that kept its apps from violating privacy laws. In a statement, Tim Hortons told the CBC that it had "strengthened" its privacy team.

Even so, the findings highlight the concerns about potential app data abuse. While Tim Hortons isn't known to have misused info, other companies have put data on sale and otherwise lost control. Those compromises can lead to unwanted advertising and, in extreme cases, probes into your personal life. British Columbia privacy commissioner Michael McEvoy saw this latest investigation as proof stronger oversight was necessary, and it wouldn't be surprising if Canada and other countries took action.

The price of Ring's cheapest security camera subscription plan has stayed flat at $3 a month since it was introduced in 2017. But soon, alongside increased video storage and some expanded features, the price of a Protect Basic subscription is going up by 99 cents.

Ring says the rate hike will go into effect starting with your first bill on or after July 1st, 2022, bumping the price of a Protect Basic plan up to $3.99 a month or $39.99 per year. Other Ring subscription plans are staying the same, with the Protect Plus plan remaining at $10 or month, or $20 a month for Protect Pro. In its press release, Ring justified the increase by adding support for more video storage (up to 180 days, up from 60 days), larger bulk videos downloads (up to 50 videos at a time, up from 20) and the ability to receive exclusive discounts on future Ring products (which was previously only available with Protect Plus and Protect Pro plans).

Amazon/Ring

While a 99-cent bump might not sound like much, because each Protect Basic plan only covers a single camera per sub and Ring cameras require a subscription to save and record videos, owners with two or three cameras could be looking at a more significant yearly cost. This may push some customers towards upgrading to Ring's mid-range Protect Plus plan, which covers all the cameras in your home for $10 a month. 

In the future, Ring also says package alert functionality will soon be available on a wider range of doorbells, along with upcoming support for smart alerts, sound detection, and custom event alerts — all of which are currently not available with a Protect Basic plan. Thankfully, it appears standard functions such as two-way communication and the live camera view will continue to work without a subscription. So if you don't want to fork over an extra dollar a month, you'll still have access to a limited set of default features. 

The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference takes place next week and, as always in the lead up to the event, the rumor mill is churning away. A report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman suggests that Apple will reveal some big updates for iPadOS 16. Apple has long been trying to position the iPad as a viable alternative to a laptop, and the software changes will seemingly nudge the device further in that direction.

Gurman's sources say iPadOS 16 will have a revamped multitasking interface, including more resizing options. Currently, users can run apps in full screen or side by side in Split View. The Slide Over function allows you to bring in a narrower version of a third app as well. The next version of iPadOS will seemingly make it easier to move between apps and see which ones you have open too. 

To add fuel to the fire, developer Steve Troughton-Smith last week spotted code in WebKit which indicates that Apple may allow for freely resizable windows in iPadOS.

Improved multitasking options and resizable apps will be very welcome for many users. Folks have long been able to use keyboards with the iPad and Apple added full mouse and trackpad support two years ago. Whether the mooted iPadOS updates will actually help the device become a laptop killer remains to be seen, but it's clear Apple hasn't given up on the idea. 

Also during Monday's keynote, we'll surely get a look at what's next for the iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch operating systems. Gurman previously reported that iOS 16 will introduce more health-tracking features, upgraded notifications and support for always-on displays (which is expected to only be available on iPhone 14 Pro models at first). A refreshed lock screen may include widgets, which Messages is believed to be getting more features as well.

While we wait to learn more about Android 13, Google continues to release new features to its platform in the same regular cadence it's adopted for the last few years. Today, the company has announced a set of updates around GBoard stickers, the Play Store and accessibility apps like Lookout and Sound Amplifier.

First, Google is bringing custom text stickers, which it previously launched on Pixel phones, to all Android devices. The feature allows you to convert English words into images, so if you type "Hi Ma" into GBoard and tap the custom stickers button in the suggested emojis row, you'll see some auto-generated graphics featuring that text in different designs. Your language will have to be set to US English for this to work, for now.

The company is also adding more than 1,600 new Emoji Kitchen combinations so you can make new hybrid emoticons by tapping two symbols in succession. It's also adding rainbow-themed stickers for users to share their Pride celebrations. 

Sound Amplifier is an Android app that makes sounds around you louder, which could be helpful for people with hearing loss. "Today's update brings improved background noise reduction," according to Google, along with "faster and more accurate sound and a revamped user interface that is easier to see."

Also relevant to accessibility is the Lookout app, which uses the device's camera to identify and describe objects around the user. It can read out words on signs or tell you if there's say, a table at the two o'clock position, for example, so you can avoid walking into it. Today, Google's adding a new Images mode that uses its "latest machine learning model for image understanding" and can describe an image even if you opened it from "just about any app." The company also updated the Text, Documents, Food Label and Explore modes to make the app more accurate. Plus, Lookout now works offline, so you can use it without an internet connection.

Finally, those who have been racking up Google Play Points can use them to get in-app items without leaving their games or apps. You can choose to pay for things with solely Play Points or a mix of money and points. This feature is rolling out over the coming weeks in the countries where Play Points are available. Meanwhile, you can update your other apps like Lookout and GBoard to see the new tools announced today.

Chinese readers are about to lose some choice in e-books. Reutersreports Amazon is pulling Kindle products from China over the course of the next two years. The company will stop offering Kindle e-readers to local retailers as of today, and plans to shutter its digital bookstore in the country on June 30th, 2023. The Kindle app will leave Chinese online stores on June 30th, 2024, and customers will have until then to download any books they've already purchased.

Amazon will still provide warranty service and other help for Kindle e-readers, and will accept returns for "non-quality issues" for any device bought after January 1st, 2022. Hardware, apps and books will still be usable after the 2024 cutoff.

In its notice, Amazon stressed that this didn't represent a withdrawal from China. The company had a "long-term commitment" that included online shopping and smart home devices. Amazon also told Reuters that this wasn't due to censorship or other government pressure, and that it occasionally "make[s] adjustments" following reviews.

Poor sales might play a role. While Amazon is a frontrunner in the e-reader and e-book markets for numerous countries, it has struggled in China as of late. The country was once the Kindle's largest market, with internal data (obtained by Reuters) showing that it represented over 40 percent of e-reader sales in 2017. The rise of Chinese competitors like Xiaomi andTikTok parent ByteDance eroded Amazon's share, however, and iiMedia Research analyst Zhang Yi told Nikkei that the Kindle brand is now "relatively niche" in the region. The Chinese are more likely to read with their phones, and domestic e-book services like Tencent's China Literature dominate where the Kindle app isn't even in the top 10.

Amazon isn't the only American company scaling back its Chinese presence. Airbnb, LinkedIn and Yahoo (Engadget's parent company) have either limited services or withdrawn entirely. Amazon's exit from e-reading is one of the more prominent examples, though, and illustrates how difficult it can be for US firms to court Chinese audiences.

A couple of years ago, Motorola introduced its first phone with a built-in stylus, which quickly became one of the company’s best-selling handsets. And now TCL is jumping on the trend with its first attempt at making a budget Galaxy Note alternative with the $258 TCL Stylus 5G.

Featuring a large 6.81-inch FHD+ display, the TCL Stylus 5G provides ample room for things like drawing, taking notes or simply watching videos. And similar to other TCL handsets, the phone features a blue light filter and support for the company’s NXTVISION tech, which can upscale SDR content to HDR to improve things like contrast and color saturation in both movies and games.

Other specs include a 4,000 mAh battery, an octa-core Mediatek Dimensity 700 chip, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Thankfully, unlike a lot of premium smartphones, the Stylus 5G still comes with a microSD card slot for expandable storage and a 3.5mm jack for wired audio. Cameras include a 50MP main sensor in back, along with a 5MP ultrawide lens, a 2MP depth sensor and even a 2MP macro cam. Meanwhile in front, there’s a 13MP selfie shooter.

TCL

As for the stylus, just like on a Galaxy Note (or more recently, the Galaxy S22 Ultra) the TCL Stylus 5G has a built-in storage slot for its pen along with a number of pre-installed stylus apps. There’s a feature similar to Samsung’s Screen Off memo that lets you start taking notes without needing to unlock your phone first. There are also dedicated shortcuts for grabbing screenshots and creating custom GIFs. And thanks to a partnership with MyScript, the phone also comes with free subscriptions for the Nebo and MyScript Calculator apps, which allow you to convert handwritten notes or formulas into text.

Unfortunately, the Stylus 5G lacks some of the advanced functions you get on more expensive alternatives. The phone’s pen is a passive stylus, so it can’t be used as a remote camera shutter or presentation tool, and despite having 5G in its name, the phone only supports sub-6Ghz 5G. That said, TCL claims the Stylus 5G has 30 percent less latency than similarly priced rivals like the Moto Stylus 5G. So in the end, perhaps the biggest concern about the phone is limited software support, as TCL is only promising one major Android OS update and just two years of security patches.

However, if you’re looking for a super affordable phone with a built-in pen, it’s nice to see a company other than Motorola test the market with the TCL Stylus 5G. The phone is available today on T-Mobile and Metro.

Meta’s Messenger app has become an incredibly popular way to make free voice and video calls. Now, a new design tweak will make the call button (slightly) easier to find. Meta is adding a dedicated tab for audio and video calls to the function bar at the bottom of the app. The new tab will appear alongside “Chats”, “Stories” and “People”, and open up to a list of the user’s contacts, along with separate buttons for voice and video calls. It’s a subtle change, but likely a move to make Messenger seem more like a messaging and calling app in the style of Whatsapp. Prior to the change, users had to open up a separate chat thread with a friend in order to call them. The new feature allows users to dial friends directly,and may also serve as an introduction to those less familiar with Messenger’s calling features.

According to Meta, audio and video calling on Messenger has increased by 40 percent since early 2020. The company expanded the features available to its encrypted messaging earlier this year, adding reactions, stickers, message-specific replies and forwarding. Meta’s plan is to eventually make end-to-end encryption the default for Facebook and Instagram in 2023. It’s added a number of AR effects to its video calls, letting users experiment with filters, masks and animations.

As far as free messaging apps go, Messenger has a long list of competitors, including Google Voice, Viber, Signal and WhatsApp, which Meta bought in 2014. While emphasizing the audio and video functions doesn't do much to make Messenger stand out from the pack, it remains one of the few major apps in this crowded field, other than FaceTime, that doesn't require a phone number to use.

Discord's audio chat has sometimes been a confusing experience — as you can't type in a voice channel, you often have to switch between channels just to share a link or funny GIF. Clarity is coming at last, though. The service has enabled text chat in voice channels across all platforms. Each channel now includes a dedicated section where you can type to your heart's content. You don't have to join the call to participate, either, so you can pop in to offer help without too much disruption.

Voice channels now have the same permissions as regular text chats, so moderators can limit the ability to send messages, stickers and other content. Perks from 'boosted' servers, like larger file uploads, will carry over to voice channels.

The feature is free for all servers. It's available now for servers that haven't been set to "Community" status (that is, only private-use servers), but managers can opt in if they're comfortable. All servers will have text enabled by June 29th.

Discord's move could help reduce confusion, not to mention the proliferation of channels created solely to handle text chat for voice users. To some degree, it's surprising the hybrid of voice and text wasn't available before. However, it's likely to be a welcome change of pace. Critics have accused Discord of focusing too much on Clubhouse-like broadcasts, Premium channel memberships and other features that go beyond the company's original gaming focus. With text chat in voice channels, Discord is going back to basics with a feature users have wanted for a long time.