It's been more than 11 years since Instagram first launched... and there's still no native iPad app. Instagram users are limited to using the web interface or the iPhone version, an app that is definitely not optimized for the iPad's larger screen. And according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri, that's not going to change any time soon. 

In a series of tweets between Mosseri and prolific tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, Mosseri said that there weren't enough iPad users to justify making a dedicated app. "The year is 2022 and there's still no proper Instagram app for iPad," Brownlee tweeted Sunday afternoon. Mosseri apparently saw it and decided to open up a bit about the decision. "It's still just not a big enough group of people to be a priority," he responded. "Hoping to get to it at some point, but right now we're very heads down on other things."

Mosseri shed a little more light on the situation; in a subsequent tweet, he noted that Instagram's team is "leaner than you think" and said the company was already supporting four platforms (iOS, Android, web and Instagram Lite). He also mentioned Instagram's competitors by name, calling TikTok and YouTube "behemoths." In relation to how people use Instagram vs. those apps, Mosseri said that Instagram users share more in private messages than they do in the feed or through stories, and that the company "need[s] to adapt." 

It wasn't exactly clear what he meant by needing to adapt, but it sounds like he thinks people are sharing more publicly on TikTok and YouTube than they are on Instagram right now. Adapting could either be finding ways to make people share more publicly or to improve the messaging experience that is so popular on Instagram, but Mosseri didn't say more on that point.

Finally, Mosseri indicated that Instagram internally views full iPad support as a "finally feature," something they want to get to but isn't a huge priority. "Things like supporting dark mode, scheduled posts, an iPad app, deleting one photo from a carousel, etc," he tweeted. 

While there are clearly millions of iPad owners who would likely enjoy an Instagram app, the company has done a lot to make the web experience better over the last few years. Messaging has been fully supported for a while now, and as of last fall you can even create Instagram posts from the website as well. Stories are still exclusive to the mobile apps, but the overall web experience is not nearly as compromised as it used to be.

Regardless, people will probably not stop asking for an Instagram iPad app any time soon, but at least the app's leader has been forthcoming about the chances of that happening in the future. Never say never, iPad users, but don't hold your breath. 

While the Samsung T7 SSD has been on sale for a week or two, the T7 Touch portable drive has now joined it in being discounted. The palm-sized SSD in 1TB is down to $140, or 26 percent off its normal price. Only the black model is this low — if you really want the silver version, it'll cost you an extra $20 — but now's a good time to grab an extra drive and save $50 at the same time.

Storage gadgets can get expensive, especially when you want a 1TB or more of digital space, so we always recommend waiting for a sale like this one before buying. Samsung's T7 series has become one of our favorites in the portable SSD space for their pocket-friendly yet durable designs, fast performance and extra features like Dynamic Thermal Guard, AES 256-bit encryption and optional password protection. On top of all that, the Touch model has a built-in fingerprint reader for an extra layer of security.

The T7 Touch comes with both a USB-C to C and a USB-C to A cable, so you can use it with nearly any device you have — smartphone, tablet, laptop, some game consoles and more. If you have a tighter budget, you can still grab the 1TB Samsung T7 — which is identical to the Touch model, with the exception of the fingerprint reader — for $110, which is 35 percent off and the best price we've seen. And if you're looking for an internal SSD that will work with the PS5 you just got your hands on, Samsung's 980 Pro in 2TB is down to an all-time low of $280 right now, too.

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Noise cancelling headphones can make all the difference if you're tired of working in a noisy environment or want your public-transit commute to be a bit more peaceful. Bose's QuietComfort 45 ANC headphones are some of the best out there right now, and they're back down to their Black Friday price on Amazon. You can pick up the cans in either black or white for $279, which is $50 off their normal price.

The QuietComfort lineup has been around for a long time, and Bose essentially took the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" route with the QC45. These wireless headphones look much the same as the previous version — they don't have the slickest design, but they are super comfortable and they have handy onboard controls for playing/pausing music, adjusting volume and switching between ANC and ambient sound mode. They charge via USB-C and have an impressive 22.5-hour battery life, so you can wear them all day long without missing a beat.

The sound quality is what you'd expect from a pair of high-end Bose cans. The QC45 pump out clear and balanced audio, and the active noise cancellation is some of the best we've tried. Bose's ANC was already great to begin with, but the company improved on it here with a "proprietary digital chip" that helps detect and silence more mid-range frequencies.

There are a few downsides to these cans, including their somewhat antiquated design, but more importantly, the QC45 don't have automatic pausing. Also, their multi-device connectivity can be a bit finicky because they don't automatically reconnect to a second device after you take a call. If those features mean a lot to you, you'll want to consider Sony's WH-1000XM4. But otherwise, the QC45 are excellent ANC headphones that are even better when you can get them on sale like this.

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Every now and then, a phone maker comes up with a new charging speed claim. The latest company to do so is Oppo, which unveiled its 150W SuperVOOC flash charge — a leap from the 80W version on the recently launched Find X5 Pro and OnePlus 10 Pro — at MWC. This will offer a mere 15-minute charge time for a 4,500mAh dual-cell battery, but a quick five-minute charge can already get you back up to 50 percent. If you like the sound of this, you may look forward to it on the next OnePlus flagship phone, which is due in Q2 2022. At the same conference, Oppo's sister brand Realme even announced that its upcoming GT Neo 3 will be the world's first phone to support 150W SuperVOOC, so chances are OnePlus' next phone will arrive after Realme's.

Oppo's 150W SuperVOOC is a tad faster than the current 120W offerings from the likes of Xiaomi and Vivo iQOO — ranging from 17 to 20 minutes, depending on the battery size. But it's not just about speed. This fast charge tech is supported by Oppo's "Battery Health Engine" (or "BHE" in short) which claims to double the battery lifespan, and this is already available on the recently launched Find X5 series. In a nutshell, "BHE" comprises of a dedicated battery management chip, smart battery health algorithm and some sort of battery healing tech — mainly by way of improving the cells' electrolyte formula. 

Oppo

According to Oppo, the industry standard for conventional flash charge is 800 charge cycles before reaching the 80-percent battery health deterioration threshold. With the "BHE" enhancements, however, the battery lifespan can be prolonged to 1,600 cycles — or as long as four years for a phone with daily recharging. The company added that "BHE" will be a standard feature for all flagships from Oppo and OnePlus (and likely Realme as well) moving forward, irregardless of their charging speeds.

It's also worth noting that this new 150W SuperVOOC charger is almost just as compact as its 65W counterpart. The latter has been bundled with most flagship and mid-range phones from Oppo, OnePlus and Realme over the past two years.

With Oppo setting a new benchmark in terms of both charging speed and battery lifespan, it'll be interesting to see how its competitors respond. Xiaomi had already demonstrated 200W fast charging which achieved an eight-minute charge time for a (smaller) 4,000mAh battery, but as we've seen on its latestflagships, it has yet to offer anything beyond 120W to its users. To stay further ahead of the game, Oppo will be showing off a "200W+" SuperVOOC demo at its MWC booth, so stay tuned for more details on this.

Honor is today announcing its latest flagship smartphone, the Magic4, which refines the general template laid down by its predecessor, the Magic 3. Not that you could actually buy the Magic 3, because despite the promise of a global rollout, the handset never officially left China. This, the company says, was down to the growing pains associated with escaping Huawei’s shadow after their sanctions-mandated divorce. This year, however, we’re told that things are going to be better and we might actually see these handsets here in the West.

The Magic 4 and the Magic 4 Pro are being positioned as equivalent handsets to Samsung’s Galaxy S22. Honor is hoping that you’ll appreciate the shopping cart’s-worth of features that the company has piled onto these devices in the hope of making you switch. And the Pro model has the sort of spec list that, on paper at least, would make you think twice about where you put your cash.

Both devices come with a 6.81-inch LTPO (Gen 3) display with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, although the Magic4’s 1,224 x 2,664 (430 ppi) screen looks inadequate compared to the Pro’s 1,312 x 2,848 (460 ppi) equivalent. Both are offering a backlit brightness of 1,000 nits, with 1,920Hz Pulse-Width Modulation dimming, HDR10+ and 100 percent DCI-P3 color. The company says that the benefits of LTPO over OLED include more efficient power usage, better refresh rate control and a reduction in eye strain.

Honor is also dumping a bucket-load of sensors into its “Eye of Muse”-branded camera setup, with both handsets getting two 50-megapixel cameras. An f/1.8 wide lens is sat across from a f/2.2 ultra-wide lens with a 122-degree field of vision. But while the vanilla edition gets an 8-megapixel periscope telephoto lens, the Pro is packing a 64-megapixel beast with a 3.5x optical zoom and 100x digital zoom. The more expensive unit also gets an 8x8 Direct Time of Flight (dTOF) sensor to help with focusing and improving image quality.

But, in all honesty, the company would much rather talk about its work harnessing “Multi-Camera Fusion” computational photography to blend together snaps from each of these lenses for sharper, better pictures. For instance, a shot taken between 0.6x and 1x zoom will likely be a composite of shots taken with those 50MP wide and ultra-wide lenses. Between 1x and 2x zoom will be the wide camera on its own, while anything after that will use the telephoto as well. Once you get to 3.5x and beyond, you’ll get “Multi-Frame Fusion,” mashing all of the lens inputs for, it’s hoped, far better zoomed images.

In terms of video, please forgive me for not wanting to repeat a chunk of what I wrote last year about the Magic3. Last year, Honor made a capital-B big deal about that model’s ability to shoot cinema-quality video in a custom, mobile-friendly version of (pro film standard) Log: MagicLog. This year, Honor says that MagicLog will crank out 10-bit 4K video running at 60 fps, which if accurate, would make this phone one hell of a tool for hobbyist filmmakers. The company adds that stills taken while recording video will be of far better quality than previous generations of handsets.

Both handsets are toting Snapdragon’s 8 Gen 1 SoC, the same 4nm 5G chip that you’ll find inside the Galaxy S22. Both come with an Adreno 730 GPU and the option of either 8GB or 12GB RAM, while storage options include 128GB, 256GB or 512GB on the Magic 4 and 256GB or 512GB storage on the Pro. There’s also a custom “dedicated security chip” designed to hold biometrics, passwords and payment data, although it’s not clear what security this offers over what Qualcomm already promises.

Rounding out the important news is at least one quality-of-life tweak for the Magic 4 Pro called AI Privacy Call. This, as the name doesn’t entirely suggest, is designed to dynamically adjust the volume of a call depending on the ambient noise. If you’re in a busy, noisy environment, it’ll boost the volume of the loudspeaker to help you hear what’s going on. If you’re in a pin-drop quiet elevator and would rather your fellow passengers not hear your most intimate conversations, it’ll dial it down.

Honor

Another feature reserved for the 4 Pro exclusively is 100W SuperCharging which, if you have the right charger, will rejuice that 4,600mAh battery up to 90 percent in just half an hour using wired or wireless charging. The Magic4’s 4,800mAh battery, meanwhile, will accept up to 66W charging through the correct Honor SuperCharge equipment.

As part of its split from Huawei, Honor pledged to produce its own range of hardware products to mirror its former parent’s strategy. This time around, the company is releasing a new pair of earbuds and a new watch, but promises that we can expect routers, displays and smart TVs to pop up at points further down the line.

Honor

The Honor Earbuds 3 Pro come with quick charging and a total playback time of 24 hours. They are also equipped with active noise cancellation and body temperature monitoring to help you keep an eye on your overall health. The Watch GS3, meanwhile, looks like Honor went all-in on making it look a little less agricultural than its predecessor. An eight-channel “Heart Rate AI Engine” is the headline feature, which the company promises will offer far more in-depth analysis of your ticker.

Sadly, we don't know yet the Magic 4 series, earbuds and watch will be available, but the company has released initial European prices for all of them. The Magic 4 Pro, with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage will cost €1,099 ($1,230) on that side of the pond. Similarly, the Magic 4 with 8GB/256GB will cost €899 ($1,006), while the Watch GS3 will start at €229 ($256) in midnight black and €249 ($278) in blue or gold. Finally, the earbuds will be priced at €199 ($222). 

Catch up on all of the news from MWC 2022 right here!

Those who keep an eye on the machinations of the Chinese phone market might remember that Poco used to be the budget division of Xiaomi. Since the latter decided to spin out the former, Poco has been standing on its own two feet and bulking out the range of affordable handsets it offers to consumers. Today at MWC, the company is showing off a new flagship X4 Pro 5G, as well as a non-5G version of the M4 Pro.

The X4 Pro 5G is packing a 6.67-inch, FHD+ display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a backlit capable of pumping up to 700 nits into your eyeballs. Poco is hoping to lure new customers in with the promise of a 108-megapixel, f/1.9 primary camera flanked by an 8-megapixel ultra-wide shooter and a 2-megapixel macro lens. Up front, meanwhile, is a 16-megapixel f/1.4 punch hole camera that gets little more than a nod in Poco’s press materials.

Lurking inside, however, is the “premium midrange” Snapdragon 695 5G nestled alongside either 6GB RAM and 128GB storage, or 8GB RAM/256GB. Support for 1TB additional storage is offered, as well as a 67W charger which comes in the box — useful, since the 5,000mAh battery supports 67W fast charging. You may forgive the side-button fingerprint sensor if you’re an audiophile, too, since it is both hi-res audio certified and also still comes with the rare and beautiful treat of a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Poco

If you’re looking for something a little gentler on your wallet, then Poco is today revealing a non-5G version of its M4 Pro. It’s packing a 6.43-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate, a 64-megapixel, f/1.8 rear camera and 5,000mAh battery with support for 33W charging. Powering the unit is a MediaTek Helio G96, which comes with a choice of 6GB RAM 128GB storage, or 8GB of the former and 256GB of the latter.

As for right now, however, we don’t quite know if either of these handsets will be available to buy in the US and Europe, or how much they’ll cost. That said, a cached Amazon France listing suggests that the X4 Pro will at least reach that nation, priced at €350 (around $392). 

Catch up on all of the news from MWC 2022 right here!

It feels like only last week that Samsung was taking the covers off its Galaxy S22 series of devices, but that's because it was literally only a few weeks ago. Of course, the company isn't stopping there and is using MWC 2022 to reveal the latest iterations of its Galaxy Book laptops. 

The Galaxy Book 2 Pro series was the major announcement this year, encompassing three new laptops. There's the convertible Galaxy Book 2 360, the clamshell Galaxy Book 2 Pro and the Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360, a high-end 2-in-1. They all sport 13-inch screens, with the Pro and Pro 360 also getting 15-inch versions.

While there's no phone news, these laptops will have cross-device support for your other Galaxy devices, as well as further Bixby voice assistant features. Dive into all the full details in our highlight reel below.

Catch up on all of the news from MWC 2022 right here!

Facebook has pulled a network of fake accounts attempting to spread Russian disinformation in Ukraine. The company said it had removed about 40 accounts, pages and groups from Facebook and Instagram that were detected over the last 48 hours. 

Meanwhile, Russia has been restricting Twitter access for its citizens since early Saturday morning. According to internet monitor NetBlocks, there was a nearly complete blackout of the platform across all major domestic telecom providers. On Friday, the country’s telecom regulator, Roskomnadzor, began partially restricting access to Facebook after the social network refused to stop fact checking and labeling content from Russia’s state-owned news organizations.

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

• Ukraine asks international volunteers to join 'IT army' against Russia

• YouTube blocks RT and other Russian channels from generating ad revenue

• Some Russian bank cards no longer work with Apple Pay and Google Pay

• 'The Dropout' offers a timely reminder of the Theranos madness

• Sony's answer to Game Pass on PlayStation could cost up to $16 a month

• Samsung's new Galaxy Book laptops get better webcams and brighter screens

• Hitting the Books: The case against tomorrow's robots looking like people

• Huawei's new MateBook X Pro has six speakers packed inside it

Valve Steam Deck Review

Its first portable combines the familiar with something new.

Engadget

Valve's first portable isn’t a mobile device to take on your everyday commute. It's more like a Steam Controller and a Steam Machine in one hefty package, and it isn’t all that comfortable to play for hours on end. But while it's hard for Senior Editor Jessica Conditt to recommend the Steam Deck as an introduction to PC gaming, it's a great second device for the millions of existing Steam users around the world, one that opens up new places to play around the house.

Continue reading.

'Pokémon Scarlet' and 'Violet' head to Switch in late 2022

It’s set to be an ‘open-world adventure.’

The Pokémon Company just surprised most of us. It revealed Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, two new Pokémon games, are set to launch sometime in late 2022. Building on the recently released Pokémon Legends: Arceus, developer Game Freak said the games would offer an "open-world adventure" for players to discover. Perhaps it’ll strike a balance between the newest Pokémon game and the mainline series.

Continue reading.

Huawei’s MatePad Paper is half e-reader, half tablet

And it works with the company’s stylus.

Huawei

A lot of us are obsessed with e-ink devices. The latest addition is a substantially sized e-ink tablet from Huawei. The MatePad Paper has a 10.3-inch grayscale screen with an anti-glare, reflective display to aid low-light use. The Paper can reproduce 256 shades of greyscale to display text and images — and even video. Not only does it have surprisingly tiny bezels, with an 86.3% screen-to-body ratio, but it’s also is compatible with Huawei’s M-Pencil, its second-generation stylus.

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TCL’s latest concept phone folds inwards and outwards

But getting the screen to work is staggeringly difficult.

TCL seems to love showing off its prototypes, and it’s doing the same for MWC 2022. Alongside an array of new phones and tablets, the company just debuted a concept device tentatively called the Ultra Flex — a phone with a 360-degree rotating hinge and a flexible display that bends with it. This thing can fold in on itself as well as outwards. However, it’s a little… no, very, delicate.

Continue reading.

Microsoft's Xbox Series S is a bestseller for a reason: it's a solid next-generation console that is almost always in stock and often enjoys the odd discount between retailers. If you've been waiting for one such price drop, Woot has come in clutch with one of the best deals we've seen. Today, the Xbox Series S is on sale for just $250, which is $50 or almost 17 percent off the regular $300 price. The only catch is that you must be an Amazon Prime member to get the deal.

While the Series S has been more easy to find over the past year or so than both the Xbox Series X and Playstation 5, it hasn't received any notable discounts since its launch in 2020. The matte white console comes with 512GB of onboard storage and ships with a slightly tweaked version of the Xbox controller most know and love. It also has a variety of ports, including an Ethernet connector, an HDMI 2.1 port and two for USB 3.1 ports.

The key thing to remember about the Series S is its lack of disk drive. This shouldn't be too much of an issue if you get most of your games from Xbox Game Pass, but it's good to keep in mind as you decide how to use the console's built-in storage. If you want to expand it, you'll need a compatible card like this one from Seagate. For backwards-compatible titles, of which there are plenty for the Series S, you can save those on an external HDD.

Given the Xbox Series S is smaller and cheaper than the Series X, it lacks some of the advanced features of the latter console. Aside from the lack of disc drive, key among them are no support for 4K game and less storage overall. But if you can live with those trade-offs, Woot's deal for Prime members is the best for the new console.

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Unlike Apple’s M1 MacBooks, ARM-based Windows on Snapdragon laptops haven’t enjoyed quite the same level of success or popularity. But Lenovo is hoping to change that – at least for enterprise customers – with the new ThinkPad X13s.

The ThinkPad X13s’ secret weapon is its Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 chip, which Lenovo says is the first time Qualcomm’s newest laptop processor has been featured in a commercial device. By leveraging improved energy efficiency and a low-power 400-nit 13.3-inch display, Lenovo says the ThinkPad X13s can last up to 28 hours on a single charge. That said, I’m going to want to confirm this myself, because I’ve definitely been burned by shorter-than-expected longevity on previous Windows on Snapdragon machines.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

In keeping with the ThinkPad X13s’ focus on mobile productivity, the laptop also features a fanless design while weighing just 2.5 pounds, with top and bottom panels made from 90 percent recycled magnesium. And to make sure you have a speedy internet connection wherever you go, the laptop also supports 5G (both sub-6GHz and mmWave) and WiFi 6E. Other specs include up to 32GB of RAM, up to 1TB of PCIe storage, and two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports (but no Thunderbolt 4, cause that’s an Intel thing).

Inside, the laptop comes pre-installed with Windows 11 Pro, with Lenovo relying on a number of Qualcomm’s collaboration features like AI-based auto-framing for its 5MP webcam and intelligent noise suppression that works with the laptop’s triple microphone setup. There’s even a human presence detection feature that can automatically dim or turn off the laptop’s display when it detects that you have looked away to protect sensitive data from prying eyes.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Now I know I’m not exactly Lenovo’s target audience for the ThinkPad X13s, and I probably wouldn’t buy a Windows on Snapdragon laptop for myself since they often struggle to run games (even casual titles). But even so, during my brief hands-on time with the device, I found that there’s a lot to like. Its design is quite sleek even by ThinkPad standards, while its magnesium chassis adds durability without a significant increase in weight. And of course, there’s that claimed 28 hours of battery which should last for days of real-world use (assuming the laptop can live up to Lenovo’s figures).

The only issue I noticed during my brief time with the notebook was a touchpad that felt softer and spongier than I’d like. Though since it’s a ThinkPad, you can always use Lenovo’s iconic TrackPoint nub instead. Thankfully, the X13s’ keyboard felt crisp with plenty of key travel, so there shouldn't be much of a learning curve for ThinkPad diehards.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

For a low power display, the laptop’s screen is admirably bright, and the auto-framing camera worked like a charm, even if it was a touch too aggressive zooming in and out when I moved my head back and forth. You even get built-in IR cameras for facial recognition and Windows Hello face login. And thanks to the App Assure program, enterprise customers can get help directly from Microsoft to ensure all of a company’s corporate software runs smoothly on the X13s’ Arm-based processor.

So despite a bumpy reception for previous Windows on Snapdragon machines, between the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 and Lenovo's willingness to put that chip in a ThinkPad for the first time, we could be looking at a new era for ARM-based Windows notebooks.

The ThinkPad X13s is slated to go on sale sometime in May starting at $1,100.

Catch up on all of the news from MWC 2022 right here!