New AirPods Pro with cameras were thankfully not announced at the September Apple event. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
September Apple events are always a swirl of information and new, exciting products, and today's was no different. Apple announced its first foldable, the iPhone Duo, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max; active noise cancellation (ANC) is now on the cheapest AirPods model, the AirPods 5; and a Siri Recap feature comes to the Watch Series 12 and Watch Ultra 4. But missing were the AirPods Pro with cameras that have been rumored throughout the year and, according to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, are delayed until 2027. I'm happy about that and I hope we never get them.
I have too many concerns about a company - any company - putting cameras a …
Apple has seen reason: It has a black model in the iPhone Pro lineup again.
Last year, Apple went bold with its colors for the iPhone 17 Pro, offering a flashy orange, a shiny silver, and a dark blue. Don't get me wrong, they looked nice. But there was no black (or dark gray) for the first time since the start of the iPhone Pro lineup, which Apple first introduced in September 2019 with the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max.
I care about this because I always buy the black phone. I learned my lesson with the iPhone 6: I got it in gold to mix things up and came to regret it. I don't need something flashy - I need a phone that blends into the backg …
Apple announced the company's first device with a folding screen today, the iPhone Duo, but that's where the firsts end. The Duo is not only far from the first foldable on the market thanks to the efforts of Samsung and Google, but it's also not the first product to be called the Duo.
Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs popularized the saying "good artists copy, great artists steal," but will the iPhone Duo's folding screen, which features a custom nano-texture display material to help minimize the visibility of its crease, be enough to make us forget these other Duos that have come before it? Only time, or how aggressively Apple plans to market i …
Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of WordPress.com owner Automattic, has been placed on a paid leave of absence, as reported earlier by 404 Media. In an internal message by the outlet, Mullenweg claims Automattic chief financial officer Mark Davies "conspired" with board members to place him on leave.
"They voted to put me on a paid leave of absence. I voted against that," Mullenweg wrote, referring to Davies, along with Automattic board members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, and Sue Decker, 404 Media reports.
Mullenweg, who also co-founded WordPress.org, has headed up Automattic since 2014. In 2024, Mullenweg waged a public pressure campaign agains …
Paying more for a new phone seems almost unavoidable after Apple's event today. The new iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max start at $1,199 and $1,299, respectively - a $100 price hike over their predecessors. You can't dodge the price hike by opting for an older iPhone, either, because Apple raised prices on those by $100, too. And it's not just Apple. This year, the $100 price hike has been a trend across the industry.
Google and Samsung followed the same formula as Apple when they each launched new phones over the past few months. The Pixel 11 starts at $899, up from $799 for last year's Pixel 10. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra launched at $2,099, $10 …
Suno's new v6 AI music model is its first made with support from the record industry. Suno's Jack Brody told The Verge that v6 was "trained from the ground up, with a new set of data that does not include the same data that our previous models were trained on." The data includes content licensed from partners Warner Music Group, BMG, and Believe, as well as "user data." It's unclear whether that means v6 training data is completely free of dubiously obtained content.
One of the big changes in v6 is that there are actually three different models: v6, v6-wild, and v6-mini. Mini is the model available for free to all. It's focused on fast, res …
On a company-wide Slack this morning, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg announced he has been put on a paid leave of absence.
“And the biggest news: I won't be able to make the ELT tomorrow,” Matt wrote in an Announcement Slack. He continued, writing that Mark Davies, current Automattic Chief Financial Officer, has “conspired” with Automattic Board of Directors members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, and Sue Decker “behind my back and they voted to put me on a paid leave of absence. I voted against that.”
He wrote that Davies was voted to be the new interim CEO. “I received the resolution 50 minutes before the meeting start, and requested repeatedly for time to have it reviewed by independent legal counsel, even a few hours, which was denied,” Mullenweg wrote.
Mullenweg is the founder of Automattic, the company that owns WordPress.com, Tumblr, Pocket Casts, and a host of other popular internet brands and pieces of software. Mullenweg has faced several controversies over his management of the company in recent years.
In the same Slack channel, Davies wrote that Mullenweg would remain a board member and “he will have a voice in setting direction and making decisions.”
"As you have seen from Matt's previous messages, Automattic's board has decided to ask Matt to step away from his CEO role and take a leave of absence,” Schneider wrote following Mullenweg’s message. “We have asked Mark Davies to assume the interim CEO role while Matt is out. We've worked closely with Mark over the years and we're confident he will steer the ship well while Matt is away. I'm sure you will have many questions and Mark and your leadership team will be available to answer them.”
“I want to thank Matt for his support and I intend to support him, the Board, Automattic, and our customers during this interim situation,” Davies wrote in that Slack channel. “It will take me some time to come up to speed, but we'll move forward with transparency, communication, and teamwork.” He wrote that nothing will change as a result of Mullenweg’s leave.
Mullenweg, Schneider, and Davies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An Automattic spokesperson confirmed the above to 404 Media in a statement: "Matt Mullenweg is currently on leave from Automattic. Mark Davies, Automattic’s CFO, will lead the company as interim CEO. The Board has full confidence in Mark's leadership and in the team's ability to execute against the company's priorities."
For the last few years, Mullenweg has waged a divisive legal battle with WP Engine, sparing publicly with opponents and peers on social media and in his personal blog. In 2024, he made an “Alignment Offer,” giving Automattic employees who disagreed with his stances the option to take six months of pay or $30,000, whichever was higher, with the stipulation that they would lose access to their work logins that same evening and would not be eligible for rehire.
One hundred and fifty-nine people took the offer and left. He then made another buyout offer, and threatened employees who spoke to the press with termination, saying, “exit gracefully, or be fired tomorrow with no severance.”
Open AI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the G20 Innovation Ministerial. | (Photo by Matt RAMEY / AFP via Getty Images)
OpenAI's announcement Tuesday that it has solved one of mathematics' legendary Millennium Prize problems should have been a moment of triumph. The result is both an undeniable achievement and a striking demonstration of just how rapidly AI is transforming mathematics. But before it was even formally announced, the breakthrough had been complicated by the unusual circumstances that prompted OpenAI to pursue the problem: After hearing other researchers were making progress, it seems to have thrown its considerable resources into a last-minute effort to beat them to the punch. The ensuing controversy has surfaced allegations of scooping, spying …
The City Attorney’s Office has asked Meta to explain how the harmful ads repeatedly ran on Facebook and Instagram. The company claims the ads are not under the city’s jurisdiction.
At Wednesday's iPhone Duo launch event, Apple announced a handful of new Siri AI Audio Intelligence features, including Siri Recap, Live Rewind, Sound Recognition, and Music Recognition. Alongside its announcement, Apple released a document laying out how it plans to balance AI "ambient listening" and users' privacy. It says the raw audio from the new features "is handled within dedicated hardware, is not saved as a file, and is not accessible to the operating system, apps, or Apple."
Apple announced the Apple Duo, their newest form factor of iphone and as linus is a long time foldable user, he gives his opinion on the 5 biggest 5 wins and losses of the Apple iPhone Duo.
The new Apple Watches come in a variety of material and strap combinations.
Apple rolled out the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 at its "Surprise and shine" event. The new watches feature sizable improvements to their health sensors and tracking, plus the ability to create brief audio transcriptions and summaries, plus a ceramic case option for the Series 12. Despite the new features, the watches start at the same base prices as their previous iterations. The Apple Watch Series 12 starts at $399 for the aluminum version without cellular, and the Apple Watch Ultra 4 starts at $799.
The biggest differences between the models are new features powered by the S11 processor. It supports the new Apple Intell …
Apple has just announced its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo. The new phone has a 5.4-inch outer screen and a 7.6-inch inner screen, two back cameras, Touch ID for authentication, an IP68 rating, and all sorts of slick software tricks to make iOS feel more at home on the new device. Preorders start on October 16th ahead of availability on October 23rd, and it starts at $1,999 for 256GB of storage.
It's a huge announcement for Apple, and we have many feelings about it. Here's our gut reactions to the phone. And let us know in the comments what you think!
The Duo name is good
I think iPhone Duo is the perfect name for Apple's foldable …
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