Microsoft has shared more details about a recent cyberattack campaign orchestrated by the Russian state-sponsored group blamed for last year's devastating SolarWinds hack. The company's cybersecurity experts warned that Nobelium is once again trying to access government and corporate networks around the world, despite President Joe Biden sanctioning Russia over previous cyberattacks.
According to Microsoft, the group is using the same strategy it employed in the successful SolarWinds attack — targeting companies whose products form core parts of global IT systems. In this campaign, Microsoft says, Nobelium has focused on a different aspect of the IT supply chain, namely resellers and service suppliers that provide cloud services and other tech.
The company says it has informed more than 140 providers and resellers that the group has targeted them. It believes Nobelium breached up to 14 of these companies' networks. However, Microsoft says it detected the campaign in its early stages in May, which should help mitigate the fallout.
Microsoft notes these hack attempts are part of a huge series of attacks conducted by Nobelium over the last few months. Between July 1st and October 19th, it told 609 of its customers that Nobelium had attempted to hack them on 22,868 occasions, with fewer than 10 successes. In the three years prior to July 1st, Microsoft told its customers about 20,500 attacks from all nation-state actors — not just Nobelium.
"This latest activity shares the hallmarks of Nobelium’s compromise-one-to-compromise-many approach and use of a diverse and dynamic toolkit that includes sophisticated malware, password sprays, supply chain attacks, token theft, API abuse [and] spear phishing," Microsoft's security intelligence division wrote in a tweet. Nobelium has also been known as Cozy Bear and APT29.
In 2020, hackers created a backdoor in a SolarWinds product called Orion, which was used by around 30,000 customers in the public and private sector. Nobelium is said to have carried out further hacks on the systems of nine US agencies and around 100 companies. Other hackers piggybacked onto the backdoor to facilitate their own attacks. The US sanctioned six Russian companies and 32 individuals and entities in April over alleged misconduct connected to the SolarWinds attack and attempts to interfere with the 2020 presidential election.
"This recent activity is another indicator that Russia is trying to gain long-term, systematic access to a variety of points in the technology supply chain and establish a mechanism for surveilling — now or in the future — targets of interest to the Russian government," Tom Burt, Microsoft's corporate vice president of customer security and trust, wrote in a blog post.
Apple's latest pro-level notebooks are barely one week old and they've already received a discount on Amazon. Both the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with M1 Pro CPUs are $50 off right now — that means you can grab the 512GB 14-inch model for $1,950 or the 512GB 16-inch version for $2,450. Is it a huge discount? No, but it's notable for Apple's newest laptops for which price might be a big barrier to entry for some. Both laptops will ship starting tomorrow.
Despite being announced just last week, we managed to check out the latest MacBook Pros and gave them a score of 92. Apple addressed a lot of complaints people had with its high-end laptops here, namely their lack of ports. Both machines have three Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI connector, a MagSafe power port, a headphone jack and an SD card reader. The only thing missing is a USB-A port, but that's a small sacrifice to make when you have so many connectivity options that you didn't have on previous MacBook Pros.
To house these bevy of ports, the new MacBook Pros are thicker and slightly heavier than previous editions, but they remain portable (the 14-inch a bit more so than the 16-inch). They also have lovely Liquid Retina XDR displays capable of reaching 1,600 nits of brightness thanks to their Mini-LED backlighting. They also support 120Hz refresh rates with ProMotion, which will help prevent your eyes from getting fatigued after hours of scrolling through documents and web pages. The webcam notch is a noticeable difference as well, albeit one that might frustrate some, but at least the 1080p webcam is a big upgrade from the 720p camera in previous models.
Unsurprisingly, the new MacBook Pros have stellar performance. While the M1 chipset in last year's laptops fell a bit short when it came to heavy duty creative work, the M1 Pro processors remedy that and we found the SSDs in these Pros to be speedy as well. While those who need serious power for 3D renderings and similar tasks may still want to consider machines with dedicated GPUs, others will find the power provided in the new MacBook Pros to be more than sufficient. And they last long, too — the 14-inch model survived over 12.5 hours in our testing, while the 16-inch machine lasted over 16.5 hours. If you knew during Apple's event last week that the latest MacBook Pro was the laptop for you, now's a good time to grab one while you can save a few dollars in the process.
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Apple is finally restoring balance to its portable lineup with the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros. If you wanted a big-screen Mac notebook for video editing over the past year, you were stuck paying a premium for outdated Intel and AMD hardware. So, we've been eagerly awaiting an M1 upgrade for the 16-inch MacBook Pro, a machine I called Apple's best laptop ever when it debuted two years ago.
But it's worth remembering that, for all the hype around Apple's M1 chip last year, it was a let down for creative professionals. It just couldn’t handle the kinds of heavy duty video editing and 3D rendering that they demanded, in part due to being capped at 16GB of RAM. That made the 13-inch MacBook Pro a bit of an odd duck, since the Air was nearly as fast.
Apple's redesigned MacBook Pros, powered by its new M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, are exactly what media professionals have been waiting for. The processors are far faster than last year's M1, they support up to 64GB of RAM, and both laptops feature XDR display technology borrowed from the iPad Pro. But Apple also looked backwards as it stepped forward, restoring ports and adopting a design that resembles many of its older machines. Just call them PowerBooks, reborn.
What's new
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Apple isn’t currently planning to replace the 13-inch model with the MacBook Pro 14. It’s more an expansion of the highest-end model. It can do almost everything the 16-inch model can, it’s just smaller. (The only exception is "High Power Mode," which gives the 16-inch M1 Max version a temporary speed boost.) That's one way I've come to terms with the high $1,999 starting price. The bigger model now starts at $2,499, $100 more than the Intel version.
Both notebooks still look like MacBook Pros, with sleek unibody aluminum cases. But lean in a bit closer and you'll notice some retro flourishes. They're slightly thicker, with more bulbous edges that hearken back to Apple's notebooks from the 2000's. They're also heavier than you'd expect: the 14-inch model comes in at 3.5 pounds, while the 16-inch varies between 4.7 and 4.8 pounds, depending on the chip you choose. That's about half a pound heavier than the last 16-inch MacBook Pro.
All of that heft isn’t for naught, though. In part it allowed Apple to cram in a lot more ports. Joining three Thunderbolt 4 USB-C connections are a full-sized HDMI port, a MagSafe power connection, a high-impedance headphone jack and an SD card reader (cue triumphant horns). Sure, you’ll still need adapters to connect older USB Type-A devices, but at least you can offload photos and video without extra gear. You can still charge the notebooks over USB-C — always useful in a pinch — but the MagSafe connection is less likely to cause accidental falls and you won't have to use a precious USB-C port just to stay powered up.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Looking at the MacBook Pro's screens makes it clear they're anything but retro, though. They feature 14.2-inch and 16.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR displays, respectively. Mini-LED backlighting lets them reach up to 1,600 nits of peak brightness, which is great for HDR content. The screens are a sharp 254 pixels per inch, with a 3,024 by 1,964 resolution on the 14-inch and 3,456 by 2,234 on the 16-inch. Neither are true 4K (the 16-inch comes close), but you'll still be able to work on 4K and 8K video, just at a reduced scale.
Best of all is that the MacBook Pros support ProMotion, Apple's technology that enables refresh rates up to 120Hz. With that flipped on, scrolling through web pages and documents just felt silky smooth. And after spending hours writing up this review, I definitely noticed that my eyes were less fatigued thanks to the speedy refresh rate. This is becoming more common in the laptop world. Microsoft already beat Apple to the punch by putting a 120Hz screen in the Surface Laptop Studio. ProMotion is also intelligent enough to lower the refresh rate when it makes sense, which goes a long way towards saving battery life.
Really though, you don't have to think about all of the technology going into Apple's Liquid Retina XDR displays. Just know that they look incredible, with eye-watering brightness in sunny HDR scenes and inky black darkness in night shots. These aren't OLED screens, but mini-LEDs get Apple pretty close to that level of contrast.
Embracing the notch life
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Now let's talk about the elephant in the room: that notch in the middle of the screen. Much like the last batch of iPhones, Apple carved out a portion of the display to fit in a camera. In this case a 1080p webcam. Upon first glance, it's almost laughable that Apple is leaning even more into a design element that everyone hates. But, honestly, the notch isn't a big deal.
Apple wisely pushed the MacOS menu bar around the camera, so it's really just taking up space that would go unused anyway. The menu bar also gets blacked out entirely whenever you put an app or video in fullscreen. You could also use a black wallpaper which effectively hides the notch.
I'll happily give up a bit of screen real estate, though, if it means Apple can finally squeeze in a decent camera. And judging from the dozens of video calls I've been on over the past week, it's a huge upgrade. There's a clear leap forward in resolution, sharpness and detail compared to my 2017 MacBook Pro. And it definitely looks better than the M1 MacBook Air, which had a few tweaks, but was still stuck at 720p. It would have been nice to see FaceID on the MacBook Pro though, which would have brought it on-par with Windows Hello-equipped PCs. For now, you'll still have to rely on the TouchID sensor on the power button.
In use
Our 14-inch review model was equipped with an M1 Pro sporting 16 GPU cores, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. The 16-inch had the 32 GPU core M1 Max, a 2TB SSD and a whopping 64GB of RAM. (This, by the way, marks the first time I've reviewed a laptop with that much RAM.) Both of Apple's new chips also feature 10 CPU cores — for comparison, the M1 had eight CPU cores and eight GPU cores.
Geekbench 5 CPU
Cinebench R23
Disk speed (top reads/writes)
Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch)
1,767/11,777
1,515/12,118
5.1 GB/s / 5.8 GB/s
Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021)
1,783/12,693
1,524/12,281
5.1 GB/s / 6.2 GB/s
Apple MacBook Pro (Apple M1, 13-inch, 2020)
1,696/7,174
1,492/7,467
3GB/s / 3GB/s
Dell XPS 15 (Intel i7-11800H, RTX 3050 Ti)
1,536/7,551
1,506/9,453
2.8 GB/s / 2.6 GB/s
Razer Blade 14 (AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX. RTX 3080)
1,443/7,226
1,461/11,502
3 GB/s / 2 GB/s
Just based on specs, I expected to see some wild performance improvements. And the benchmarks didn't disappoint: According to GeekBench 5, both MacBook Pros blew away every Windows PC we reviewed this year by a significant margin. That includes the NUC 11 Extreme powered by Intel's Core i9-11900KB, a high-end desktop CPU! The single-core performance on the M1 Pro and Max was similar to the M1, which is unsurprising. But the multi-core figures were far higher. Another nice plus: Both of these computers are equipped with very fast NVMe SSDs, which will be a huge help when working with large projects.
The GPU-heavy Geekbench 5 Compute score made it clear that Apple hasn't completely surpassed the likes of NVIDIA and AMD, though. The 14-inch MacBook Pro was more than twice as fast as the Surface Pro 8 (running Intel's Xe graphics) and the M1-equipped 13-inch MacBook Pro, while the bigger notebook was on-par with the Surface Laptop Studio equipped with an NVIDIA 3050 Ti. These aren't bad scores, but it makes it clear that users who need serious power for 3D rendering or data crunching may be better off with PCs equipped with dedicated GPUs.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
I don't think those are the people Apple is trying to court, though. Instead, the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros seem like an attempt to get back in the good graces of audio and video producers. Apple's new chips will certainly be more than enough for dealing with media. Both computers managed to convert a 4K video clip to 1080p in 34 seconds with Apple's VideoToolbox hardware encoder, which is four seconds slower than the NUC 11 Extreme, but four seconds faster than the XPS 15. They were also among the fastest Cinebench R23 performers we saw this year — only the ASUS ROG Strix G15 gaming laptop bested them.
And before you ask, no, the M1 Pro and M1 Max don't magically turn these computers into gaming rigs. Sure, everything on Apple Arcade runs smoothly, but that was true of the MacBook Air. When I tried to load Borderlands 3, one of the few semi-recent games that actually works on Macs, I just got an unplayable mess running below 30fps. Maybe the the guarantee of decent GPUs will encourage more game developers to build for Macs, but more likely they'll just end up making sure their iPhone and iPad games run smoothly.
Surprisingly, I didn’t notice a huge difference in performance when I was running the MacBook Pros on battery. PCs often slow down dramatically whenever they’re disconnected from a socket, but not so with these notebooks. That’s useful if you need to encode something remotely and you’re willing to sacrifice battery life to get it done.
Don’t worry though, the efficiency of the M1 chip’s ARM design leads to great battery performance. The 14-inch MacBook Pro lasted 12 hours and 35 minutes in our benchmark, while the 16-inch went for 16 hours and 34 minutes. That’s over five hours longer than the last Intel model.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
It’s clear that Apple listened to many of the complaints from Mac fans (and perhaps even lowly reviewers). But really, that’s something the company has been doing more over the years, like when it finally moved away from those awful butterfly keyboards to more tactile Magic Keyboards. By the way, typing on the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro remains excellent, and the trackpad is a dream to use, as always.
Apple didn't skimp on the audio front either. Both MacBook Pros sport a six-speaker array, made up of two tweeters and four force-cancelling woofers. Simply put, they sound miraculous. I normally just play a few songs on notebook speakers to confirm how disappointing they are. But these laptops sounded like I was listening to two small bookshelf speakers, with transparent vocals and punchy bass. Yes, I'm as shocked as you are.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro sounds a bit better, since it has room for slightly bigger drivers, but both notebooks are enough for a private jam session. The MacBook Pro's microphones also do a solid job of capturing speech during video calls. I wouldn't use them to record professional music, as Apple suggested you could, but they’re probably fine for a quick podcast session on the road.
Wrap-up
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
So if you’re in the market for one of these new computers, which should you get? If you’re mostly using it for general productivity tasks, then I’d lean towards the 14-inch model, which was just easier to travel with. It’s a good option for coders and people who may not need a ton of screen real estate. But all of the video and audio producers I’ve talked to were unequivocal: they wanted to go big with the 16-inch model.
The biggest downside of the new MacBook Pros are their high prices — but really, what else do you expect from Apple? The 14-inch model, in particular, will probably give you the vapors if you're comparing it to the 13-inch MacBook Pro. But in the world of gaming and high-end productivity notebooks, Apple's pricing isn't that far off. The Razer Blade 14, for example, is just two hundred dollars less than the MacBook Pro 14-inch. Dell's XPS 15 OLED is around $500 cheaper than the cheapest 16-inch MBP, but that's with a CPU that's much slower than Apple's. Once you start speccing that machine up, though, you’ll likely pay close to $2,500.
On the whole, these computers have practically everything we’d want in a powerful notebook. If you're a creative professional with a large budget for a new computer, and you want something that'll genuinely speed up your workflow, the new MacBook Pros are exactly what you need.
The latest Samsung early Black Friday sale brings The Frame smart TVs down to some of the lowest prices we've seen in a while. Both Amazon and Samsung's own website have the deals right now, which include the 55-inch The Frame 4K smart TV for just under $1,000 — that's $500 off its normal price and the lowest we've seen it. The most affordable of the bunch is the 32-inch set, which is down to $450, and you'll find the 75-inch TV for $2,200 on the high end of the spectrum.
If you aren't familiar, Samsung's The Frame TVs stand out because they aren't basic black voids when you're not watching something. Instead, they use Art Mode to display various pictures and pieces of art, allowing it to blend better into your living room. You can even send your own photos to the screen, turning it into a super-large version of those small, digital photo frames that are quite popular now. Built-in sensors optimize the picture to your environment, and they can tell when you're away, turning the screen off automatically. On top of all that, you're getting a 4K QLED set with 100 percent color volume, 4K AI upscaling and Alexa support.
While a bunch of other Samsung TVs are also on sale right now, the Premiere Projector with a 4.2.2 sound system is noteworthy because it's been discounted to just under $5,000. That's $500 cheaper than it was back in September when it was last on sale, and a total discount of $1,500. Yes, it's still an expensive piece of home theater equipment, but it's a much better buy at this price. It includes separate red, green and blue lasers so it can cover the full Rec.2020 color range, and it supports HDR10+ and up to 2,800 lumens of brightness. If you're willing to compromise a bit on sound, the model with a 2.2 channel system is down to a new low of $2,498 as well.
When Apple rolled out the new AirPods at its October 18th event, it didn't change the AirPods Pro but did introduce a MagSafe charging case. That's not a bad thing, as they already offered clear sound, good active noise cancellation and always-on Siri access. Now, we're already seeing the new Magsafe model on sale for the first time at Amazon for $220, or $29 off the regular $249 price.
The AirPods Pro earned an 87 Engadget score for their improved sound quality, better fitting design, IPX4 water resistance, Siri access and easy switching between Apple devices. They also do a good job blocking out surrounding noise, and the latest feature can boost other people's voices during conversations — useful for folks with mild hearing difficulties.
As part of its new AirPods and MacBook Pro launch, Apple also gave the AirPods Pro a MagSafe charging case for the same $249 price tag. As before, they have a built-in battery that allows you to go up to 24 hours without needing access to a wall plug. The addition of MagSafe makes charging a bit safer, as the cable will just pull out rather than tripping you or breaking if you accidentally catch it when walking by.
If that feature doesn't matter much to you, the older AirPods Pro model is also on sale for $197, for a 21 percent discount. They have dropped to lower prices before, so you could also wait for a better sale — like on Black Friday coming up next month.
This week, we’ve got a handful of reviews across several categories. Devindra Hardawar reviewed AMD’s Radeon RX 6600 and determined that its lackluster performance and features made the GPU hard to praise, particularly when chip shortages have forced skyrocketing prices. Nicole Lee carried the Facebook Portal Go around her house and found its features don’t entirely outweigh the flaws. I tracked my twin’s daily habits with the Talli one-touch tracker and liked it more than I thought I would, plus Cherlynn Low found that she wasn’t totally sold on Microsoft’s latest Surface Duo 2 folding smartphone.
Cherlynn Low admits right away that the Surface Duo 2 is a frustrating device, despite upgrades to the cameras, software and performance. At $1,500, it remains a pricey and niche foldable phone. The newest version offers a combined 8.3-inch screen and it runs Android 11. Cherlynn says the hardware is attractive with an impressively thin profile and a sleek silhouette. The unique 1,892 x 1,344 resolution produced some odd aspect ratios, but overall, apps expanded to cover the whole screen when the automatic-span setting was enabled.
While Cherlynn liked the 90Hz refresh rate, the lovely AMOLED panels and the video quality, she was disappointed that the Duo 2 didn’t have any functionality when closed since, unlike competing smartphones, it doesn’t have an external screen. She also experienced occasional software issues: the system periodically required repeated taps to register, and the UI was finicky with swipe-based navigation. But she was most let down by the camera, which disables the rear shooters depending on the position of the phone. In the end, she could only recommend the device to those who really need a dual-screen phone and have $1,500 to spare.
In his review of the Radeon RX 6600, Devindra Hardawar wonders who this GPU is for. Although the card has speedy 1080p load performance, its ray tracing was lackluster at best, its upscaling abilities are limited and it has fewer features than competing cards from NVIDIA. This makes it difficult to recommend, particularly because there’s no way to estimate how much the card will cost due to the global chip shortage and ballooning prices.
During testing, Devindra found the RX 6600 to be a capable gaming card. It reached 120FPS in Destiny 2 with maxed out graphics, but stumbled when he pushed the game to 1440p. Similarly, during the Hitman 3 benchmark, the GPU reached a respectable 138fps in 1080p, but again faltered once Devindra pushed it to 1440p. He says the RX 6600 could be an upgrade for some because of its Smart Access Memory, which allows your CPU to directly address your video card's RAM. Otherwise, he says the GPU can only compete if the market stabilizes and the price drops below $300.
Nicole Lee approves of the design updates made to Facebook’s Portal Go, which now features a grey fabric enclosure and rounded corners. The improvements make the Go easy to prop up on a lap or hold while you walk around the house. Part tablet and part smart display, the Go touts smart camera tracking via the 12-megapixel wide-angle lens that uses AI-powered technology to automatically pan and zoom to keep you in frame. This makes it easier to get several people in the picture on a call, and it works in third-party apps as well.
Nicole says she was impressed by the video capabilities of the 10.1-inch display, which has the same 1,280 x 800 resolution as previous Portal devices. She was particularly pleased by the adaptive lighting features like Night Mode, which reduces the amount of blue light in the evening. It also provides decent audio thanks to its two full-range speakers and subwoofer, so it can double as a portable speaker in a pinch. Nicole also managed to squeeze a little over six hours out of the battery — more than the company’s claims of five. Despite this, she says the Go is your best choice only if Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are your primary video call services.
Although I like the app I use to track my twins' daily habits, I was curious about Talli’s dedicated hardware. A sleek box with eight buttons , the Talli is intended to help busy parents track their kids' stats with a single button press. I have to admit: I found it a lot more useful than I thought I would. Being able to push a button to log a medication or a bottle without having to open my phone, launch an app and enter in details was a welcome relief.
The Talli tracker also pairs with an app that records and graphs your child’s daily activities. The app is standalone, meaning you don't have to buy the physical tracker to use it, and there's no subscription required in order to access features or data. If you get the device, it runs on AA batteries and can be left freestanding or be wall mounted. I’ll admit I had a challenging time trying to find the exact right location for the Talli. Grabbing it often resulted in an accidental button press, but that didn’t diminish its usefulness. It can also work alongside an Alexa skill enabling parents to log events by saying “Alexa, tell Talli Baby that Sam had a bottle.” At $99, it’s a bit pricey for a single-function device, but if you’re looking to establish a routine of recording your baby’s habits, it can make things more convenient.
T-Mobile will wait a while longer to shut down Sprint's 3G network. The Vergereports T-Mobile has delayed the CDMA network shutdown from January 1st, 2022 to March 31st of that year. The carrier pinned the delay on "partners" who hadn't "followed through" on helping their customers transition to newer network technology.
This would supposedly give partners "every opportunity" to fulfill their obligations. "There should be no more room for excuses," T-Mobile said.
The explanation appears to be a not-so-subtle attempt to pin the blame on Dish. The satellite TV provider bought Boost Mobile from T-Mobile in July 2020 and planned to use Sprint's legacy network until it could move Boost customers to its 5G service. Dish argued this didn't give it enough time to migrate its customers, and accused T-Mobile of anti-competitive behavior meant to push Boost exiles to T-Mobile.
This may be a response to both Dish's original accusation and the ensuing fallout. The Justice Department told Dish and T-Mobile in July that it had serious concerns about the Sprint network shutdown, asking the two companies to do whatever was necessary to lessen the blow. The delay might address those worries and reduce the chances of more serious government scrutiny.
A delayed shutdown still isn't ideal. T-Mobile expects to shutter Sprint's LTE network on June 30th, 2022. This leaves a three-month window where Boost customers might have LTE access, but nothing else. While you'll probably have made a decision by the March cutoff if you're a customer, this won't be a very gradual shift for some users — they'll have just a short period of limited Boost service before they have to embrace 5G.
Rumors have persisted of a flagship Samsung tablet even larger than the Galaxy Tab S7+, and now you might know what it looks like. OnLeaks and 91Mobiles have shared what they claim are images of the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. The slate would minimize the impact of its huge 14.6-inch display by stuffing the front camera system into a notch — potentially distracting, but better than a conventional design that might be even larger.
The design wouldn't be quite so unusual on the other side. The leak suggests the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra would have dual rear cameras and the familiar magnetic strip to hold your S Pen. The source claimed the imagery was "not 100 percent complete," so there's a chance the design could change slightly no matter how accurate it is as of this writing.
The regular Tab S8 and S8+ models aren't expected to use the notch. They might instead be subtle evolutions of the existing designs, which tuck the front camera into the bezel.
It's not clear just when the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra would arrive. 91Mobiles speculates that Samsung might launch the design in November or December, but it would be odd to wait until the very end of the year to release an important tablet, even if chip shortages weren't a factor. It might be easier for Samsung to wait until early 2022, when it can launch the Tab S8 series alongside the Galaxy S22.
It’s hard to remember, but 20 years ago, Apple was not a very cool company. Sure, OS X was intriguing, and the titanium PowerBook was definitely a cool computer, But when most people thought of Apple, it was probably the bulbous, colorful iMac G3 that popped into people’s heads. The company was starting to build its reputation for truly desirable products, but it wasn’t solidified just yet.
That all changed on October 23, 2001, when Steve Jobs pulled the first iPod out of his pocket. For a generation of music fans, it became the quintessentially cool item that was more than just a fad. It’s not a stretch to say it reinvented the music industry while simultaneously paving a path for Apple to become the world’s biggest company. It was the ultimate gateway drug to getting people who had never bought an Apple product before to see what all the fuss was about.
At this point, the somewhat skeptical reception to the iPod is part of tech industry lore – particularly Slashdot’s dismissal of the product as “lame” compared to a Nomad MP3 player. (Raise your hand if you ever used a Nomad. That’s what I thought.) And it’s not like the product was an instant hit – the first iPod cost $400 and only worked with the Mac, two factors that limited its appeal.
Those limitations helped it achieve some serious cachet, though. Seeing an iPod in the wild was a rarity, and my Mac-owning friends who were early adopters had to deal with my incessant questions and requests to hold it and spin its distinctive wheel. It didn’t help that my college suite-mate (who had a titanium PowerBook and iPod) and graphic designer friend (with a PowerMac G4 and iPod) were constantly going off about how great their hardware was. I was primed to become one of those switchers Apple liked to talk about in the early 2000s.
The iPod may have started out as a Mac-only product, but less than a year later, Apple opened it up to the other 98 percent of computer users by introducing a Windows-compatible model in the summer of 2002. Less than a year after that, Apple completely redesigned the iPod and released a new version of iTunes for Windows. At the same time, Apple launched the iTunes Music Store, making it a lot easier to get legal music onto an iPod. With that, the iPod moved fully into the mainstream.
There’s no good way to quantify how many people bought an iPod for Windows and then eventually switched to a Mac. But, Mac sales increased from about 3 million in 2003 to more than 7 million by 2007. Apple’s move to more powerful Intel processors in 2005 likely helped adoption, but the iPod “halo effect” was often cited in the mid-2000s as a driver of the Mac’s increasing popularity.
Growing Mac sales and the most popular consumer electronics device of the decade truly paved the way for the iPhone to be the monumental success that it was almost. Sure, the iPhone eventually killed the iPod, but as Steve Jobs said, he’d rather cannibalize Apple's sales with another Apple product than let some other company do it — this was how he justified the existence of the iPod touch, which was basically an iPhone without a phone.
I might be overselling the iPod to Mac to iPhone evolution, because I lived it. After getting a second-generation iPod in 2002 (embarrassing admission time: I also bought four more full-size iPods between then and 2009), I got my first Mac in 2003 and the first iPhone in late 2007. I remember being more excited about my first iPhone than my first iPod, mostly because it was light years better than the Moto RAZR I was using at the time. But my first iPod was similarly a huge step forward from the MP3 players I owned before. And in my early 20s, there was nothing more important to me than music.
That may not make me unique, but it’s still true. Before the iPod was everywhere, someone else who had one was someone you could trust. They took music as seriously as you did; they knew how liberating it was to have your 100 favorite albums with you, on demand, any time you needed them. In a world where Apple Music offers access to 90 million songs anywhere you are for 10 bucks a month, that might seem quaint. But 20 years ago, it was a revelation.
I still have the last iPod I ever purchased, a 2008 iPod classic with 120GB of storage – about the same space as I have in my iPhone 12 Pro. It’s still stuffed to the gills with music, some 11,000-plus songs, most of which come from albums I carefully selected over time. Most of them are still in my Apple Music library, which has now ballooned to more than double that size, with over 25,000 songs.
I’m still a firm believer in the art of making a good album, but I’ve also collected thousands of singles, or a handful of songs from artists who catch my ear on one of the many curated playlists out there. The music industry has changed, and so have I. Whether or not that’s a good thing is a debate for another time, but there’s no doubt that both the music and technology industries changed completely because of the iPod – something its humble introduction 20 years ago only barely hinted at.
This week brought our first official early Black Friday sale, courtesy of Best Buy. While we expect to see even more of these events before we hit Black Friday proper, there are a bunch of gadgets at record-low prices right now that are worth considering. Both Amazon and Best Buy knocked $150 off the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip foldable smartphone, and both retailers have some of our favorite Sony headphones and earbuds for less. Plus, the new Galaxy Watch 4 wearables are down to all-time-low prices thanks to a Samsung deals event on Amazon. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.
Sony WH-1000XM4
Engadget
Sony's excellent WH-1000XM4 headphones remain on sale for $248, which is a record low. These are our current favorite pair of ANC headphones and they earned a score of 94 from us for their solid sound quality, powerful ANC and multi-device connectivity.
The 256GB 12.9-inch iPad Pro is $200 off, bringing it down to $999. That's the same price as the 128GB version right now, so you're essentially getting double the storage at no extra cost. We gave the tablet a score of 87 for its gorgeous display, impressive performance and handy Center Stage camera.
The previous-gen Sony WF-1000XM3 earbuds are down to $128, more than $70 off their normal price. We gave these buds a score of 89 for their excellent sound, great battery life and comprehensive companion app.
The Galaxy Z Flip 3 foldable smartphone is still on sale for $850, or $150 off. This is the most practical version of a Samsung foldable yet, and we gave it a score of 82 for its more durable design, attractive build and new water resistance.
Both the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic are down to record-low prices, $220 and $300, respectively. These remain the best smartwatches for Android users and we gave the Watch 4 a score of 85 for its comprehensive health tracking abilities, lovely screen and better support for third-party apps.
The Roku Streambar is on sale for $99 right now, or $30 off its normal price. We gave the compact soundbar a score of 86 for its good sound quality, Dolby Audio support, built-in 4K HDR streaming tech and its ability to work as a Bluetooth speaker. Also, the more advanced (and larger) Streambar Pro is down to a record low of $150.
Roku's most powerful streaming device, the Ultra, is on sale for only $69 at the moment. That's $30 off its normal price and a great deal if you want 4K HDR10+ and Dolby Vision content, along with speedy WiFi and the option to hardware the set-top box into your setup via its Ethernet port.
The new Galaxy Buds 2 are down to $130 right now, or $20 off their normal price. It may be $5 more than their record low, but this is still a good deal to consider if you've been eyeing a pair of the company's true wireless earbuds. We gave the Buds 2 a score of 84 for their comfortable design, improved sound quality and adjustable ambient sound mode.
The latest Apple TV 4K is on sale for $130 at Verizon right now. This is the best price we've seen it, and you'll get the model with the latest processor, support for Dolby Vision and Atmos and the much improved new Siri remote.
The 2TB Crucial MX500 internal SSD is down to an all-time low of $170. This is a good option if you need extra storage in your desktop or laptop, and we like that it has AES 256-bit hardware based encryption and integrated power loss immunity.
This Bluetooth-connected Rubik's cube is $10 off thanks to a coupon you can apply on the product page, bringing the toy down to roughly $50. Rather than going nuts trying to solve the puzzle on your own, this one has a companion app that actually teaches you how to do so. You can then complete challenges, better your skills and try to get atop the global leaderboard.
NordVPN, one of our favorite VPNs, is running a sale on a two-year subscription. You can sign up and pay $99 for two years, plus you'll get an extra three months free. We like NordVPN for its speed, its no-logs policy, the thousands of servers it has to choose from and that one account supports up to six connected devices.
Another one of our top VPN services, Tunnelbear, is offering a two-year subscription for $100. You'll save 58 percent if you sign up with this deal, and we think Tunnelbear is one of the easiest VPNs to use, especially for those that don't want to go crazy configuring their connections.
