Technology

I took a first look at the battery pack this afternoon, and it has a significantly slimmer design than the old version. This version of the battery pack is thinner and longer, stretching as far across the back of the phone as it can before bumping into the camera bar. Slimming it down reduces the potential battery size, but it makes the pack more appropriately balanced with the phone as a result. The new model didn’t feel goofy to hold in the same way that the thick old version did.Applying a battery pack to the super-slim iPhone Air comes with some drawbacks. Namely, it makes the phone bigger again. With the battery pack on, the iPhone Air feels a lot more like any other iPhone and makes it thicker than other iPhones, too. The battery pack is slightly thicker than the iPhone Air. In my...

The iPhone Air and the iPhone 17 fleet of phones took the spotlight during Apple’s “Awe dropping” event. If you weren’t tempted by the new phones, the fact that the entire Apple Watch lineup got refreshed might have been even bigger news to you. Soon, the Apple Watch SE 3, Apple Watch Series 11, and Apple Watch Ultra 3 will arrive, and each is bringing along some big upgrades, which we’ll get into a bit below.All three are available for preorder starting today, with the SE 3 starting at $249, the Series 11 starting at $399, and the Ultra 3 starting at $799. They’ll all ship on September 19th. We’ll update this post if any attractive carrier deals roll in.All three watches launch with watchOS 26, which includes the new Liquid Glass design, just like the new updates coming to most of Appl...

iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 users are getting another year of free access to satellite connectivity features, according to a footnote on Apple’s newsroom posts for the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro. “The free trial will be extended for iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 users who have activated their device in a country that supports Apple’s satellite features prior to 12 a.m. PT on September 9, 2025,” Apple says.Apple originally launched its Emergency SOS service via satellite shortly after it released the iPhone 14 lineup in November 2022, and at the time, Apple said the feature would be free for the first two years. (The feature is still free for two years after activation on iPhone 14 models and newer.) But in 2023, Apple added an additional free year for existing iPhone 14 users, meaning that the d...

It’s less noticeable than a thinner profile or trick camera lenses, but Apple is pointing out another upgrade in the iPhone 17 family of phones that it says is part of “the most significant upgrade to memory safety in the history of consumer operating systems.” Explicitly targeting the spyware industry that produces exploits for tools like Pegasus to hack on targeted devices, a series of changes in Apple’s chips, OS, and development tools are part of what it calls Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE).With the introduction of the iPhone 17 lineup and iPhone Air, we’re excited to deliver Memory Integrity Enforcement: the industry’s first ever, comprehensive, always-on memory-safety protection covering key attack surfaces — including the kernel and over 70 userland processes — built on the E...

Apple just announced arguably its boldest Pro iPhone color ever: the new “cosmic orange” for the iPhone 17 Pro. And to my surprise, I think it looks really good.In choosing a bold hue as its hero shade for the iPhone 17 Pro, Apple also seems to have nailed one of the season’s hottest colors. Orange showed up a lot on fashion runways earlier this year, and orange-y citrus shades were one of this summer’s color trends, according to Vogue.And on the iPhone 17 Pro, it’s a deep orange that really pops. Based on Apple’s photos and the ones we took at the iPhone 17 launch event, you’ll definitely spot the phone on a table across the room. Thanks to the unibody aluminum enclosure, the color wraps all the way around and also shows up on the wide camera bump (sorry, plateau), while the glass sect...

Determined to give us something new to talk about, Apple has introduced its ultra-thin iPhone Air. It’s just 5.6mm thick with a 6.5-inch ProMotion display, a 48-megapixel dual camera, a selfie camera that supports Center Stage, and an add-on MagSafe battery. Among other things.We asked the staff of The Verge for their first impressions of the iPhone Air. We’ll run a full review of the phone, of course, but here are some feelings about the phone from our staff.Preorders for the iPhone Air begin on Friday, September 12th, and it ships on September 19th.Do you want an ultra-slim iPhone?The iPhone 17 Air is thin and lovely. My iPhone 15 Pro isn’t quite as thin, but it’s also titanium — only I’d never know because it’s always inside a thick plastic prophylactic. Unless your Air will live dan...

Anthropic’s $1.5 billion book piracy settlement has been put on pause after the federal judge overseeing the class action case raised concerns about the terms of the agreement. During a hearing this week, Judge William Alsup rejected the settlement over concerns that class action lawyers will create a deal behind closed doors that they will force “down the throats of authors,” according to reports from Bloomberg Law and the Associated Press.Anthropic agreed to pay the landmark settlement last week, putting to rest a class action lawsuit from US authors that accused the AI company of training its models on hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books. Judge Alsup let the class action lawsuit move forward after ruling that Anthropic training its AI models on purchased books counts as fair u...

Apple just announced a bunch of new health tracking features alongside its new smartwatch lineup — but you might not need to upgrade your device to get access to them. With the launch of watchOS 26 next week, Apple will bring hypertension notifications, live translation, and the new wrist flick gesture to the Watch Series 9 and newer, along with the last-gen Watch Ultra 2.Apple’s new hypertension notifications use data from the watches’ existing optical heart sensor to “analyze how a user’s blood vessels respond to the beats of the heart.” An algorithm will then review this data over a period of 30 days and will notify users if it detects signs of high blood pressure. Apple says it expects clearance from the FDA and other regulators this month. It will roll out in more than 150 countrie...

Apple announced its new iPhone 17 lineup during its “Awe dropping” event on Tuesday. As expected, the company introduced the iPhone 17, the flagship iPhone 17 Pro, and a bigger iPhone 17 Pro Max. There’s also a new addition to the lineup this year: the slimmed-down iPhone Air, which features a 6.5-inch ProMotion display and measures at just 5.6mm thick.Beyond the Air’s slimmer design, Apple’s latest iPhone lineup features a number of notable updates. The standard iPhone 17 now features a larger 6.3-inch with ProMotion and an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Meanwhile, the Pro model has returned to an aluminum build, while adding the biggest battery of any iPhone yet. The iPhone Air and Pro models have a lot in common, including having a “plateau” bump on the back, which Apple says ...

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! QR codes that were once seen as a convenient shortcut for checking menus or paying bills have increasingly been turned into weapons. Fake delivery texts, counterfeit payment links and malicious codes pasted over legitimate ones have all become part of the modern fraud playbook.The latest warning from federal authorities shows just how far these tactics have gone. Criminals are now mailing out packages that people never ordered. Inside these boxes is a QR code that, when scanned, can lead to stolen personal details, drained bank accounts or malware running silently in the background of a phone.Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy ReportGet my best tech tips, urgent security alerts and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you’ll ge...