When Sony announced the WH-1000XM4C headphones, I was perplexed. A product revamp usually includes at least one or two significant improvements. Or if it's a nostalgia play, it's from a decades-old product and not one that came out in 2020. Beyond a few minor tweaks, though, the XM4C are remarkably similar to their six-year-old namesake, the beloved WH-1000XM4. They even use the same processor for active noise cancellation (ANC).

And while I went into this review questioning the XM4C's existence, after spending some time with them, I get it. The Sony XM4C aren't the cutting edge of headphone technology, but they are great headphones that I …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The iPhone Duo is the riskiest Apple product in years. It's a huge rethink of what an iPhone is and could be, and it contains the seeds of many fascinating ideas that might be great in the future.

But that future is yet to come. The iPhone Duo is also one of Apple's messiest first-generation products in a long time, and right now it will delight gadget nerds and early adopters and likely frustrate everyone else.

It's been a minute since the iPhone has looked or worked significantly differently. The last major change was the iPhone X, which dropped the home button almost a decade ago, and even that was a fairly subtle improvement. In fact, …

Read the full story at The Verge.

After Apple courageously removed the headphone jack from the iPhone in 2016, most people switched to Bluetooth earbuds and never looked back. But their wired counterparts have stuck around, and their sales even went up this year after five years of decline.

Part of the resurgence can be tied to the fact that they're cool now with younger generations - following the revival of tape decks and vinyl. Celebrities have been spotted wearing them, and there's even an Instagram account that follows the trend. Wired earbuds have real benefits. They don't need a battery, so they'll last longer than wireless ones that eventually die, and it's a lot ha …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The other day I whizzed past several people while running in the park, my playlist blasting at full volume. The next morning, I smiled at a barista while ordering a caramel apple-flavored matcha latte. Afterward, I sat on a park bench reading a book, called up a pal to chat about her recent trip to Prague, and then asked my Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses what meetings were coming up on my calendar. The chipper AI voice said I hadn't connected my Google Calendar yet (I had) and asked if I would like help connecting. I sighed and then asked it to play an upbeat song. It picked Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us."

These past few days, dozens of people …

Read the full story at The Verge.