An iPhone owner’s guide to living off the app grid Do we really need all this? | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeThe grid is a comfortable place to live. The app grid, I mean: the rows and rows of app icons on your iPhone’s homescreen. It’s familiar. Safe. It’s how I’ve lived with my various phones over the past decade. But at some point, it started to feel oppressive. All those icon…

The Verge’s favorite books from 2024 Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesOur staff writes about the best books they read over the course of the year. Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple is working on a doorbell camera with Face ID A Google Nest doorbell camera. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The VergeApple is working on a new smart doorbell camera that uses Face ID to unlock your door, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. The camera could be released by the end of 2025 “at the soonest,” Gurman writes. The lock would work just like you…

10 great shows to stream on Amazon Prime Video from 2024 Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesThis year’s Prime Video streaming content was led by adaptations and spinoffs like Fallout and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Read the full story at The Verge.

A new and better way to control your smart home Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 65, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, get ready to take up all your phone’s storage space, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This is the last Installer of the year! I’m taking a couple of weeks off for the holidays, a…

Gemini can now tell when a PDF is on your phone screen Illustration: The VergeIn the latest version of the Files by Google app, summoning Gemini while looking at a PDF gives you the option to ask about the file, writes Android Police. You’ll need to be a Gemini Advanced subscriber to use the feature though, according to Mishaal Rahman, who reported on Friday that it had started rolling out. If you h…

LG’s brilliant B4 OLED TV is on sale with a $50 gift card for its best price ever You’d be hard-pressed to find an OLED TV for less right now. | Image: LGOne of the best Black Friday deals has returned — and this time, it’s done so with an added perk. Right now, LG’s B4 Series OLED TV is matching its all-time low at Best Buy, where you can pick it up in the 48-inch configuration for $599.99 ($200 off) with a $50 digital gift …

TCL’s new AI short films range from bad comedy to existential horror A screenshot from TCL’s The Audition. | Screenshot: TCLtv PlusEarlier this year, TCL released a trailer for Next Stop Paris — an AI-animated short film that seems like a Lifetime movie on steroids. The trailer had all the hallmarks of AI: characters that don’t move their mouths when they talk, lifeless expressions, and weird animation that makes…

ModRetro Chromatic review: an arms dealer’s Game Boy is among the best ever made Stellar hardware from a controversial figure. Read the full story at The Verge.

Here’s the first CoPilot plus mini PC with Intel’s new Core Ultra 9 processors Image: AsusAsus has announced the Asus NUC 14 Pro AI, the first Copilot Plus-capable AI mini PC that crams an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor into a form factor resembling a black M4 Mac Mini. First introduced at IFA in September, Asus is providing a little more detail about the mini PC’s specs than it did before, but still isn’t saying it will bec…

The US finalizes CHIPS Act funding for Samsung and Texas Instruments Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeThe US Commerce Department has awarded Samsung and Texas Instruments with a combined over $6 billion in “direct funding under the CHIPS Incentives Program’s Funding Opportunity for Commercial Fabrication,” according to a pair of announcements published on Friday. Samsung will get the larger of the two award…

10 excellent shows and movies from 2024 to stream on Max Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesBetween The Penguin, Dune: Prophecy, and I Saw the TV Glow, Max has you covered when it comes to last-minute streaming options to get you through the holidays. Read the full story at The Verge.

Google’s counteroffer to the government trying to break it up is unbundling Android apps Illustration by Cath Virginia / The VergeThe Department of Justice’s list of solutions for fixing Google’s illegal antitrust behavior and restoring competition in the search engine market started with forcing the company to sell Chrome, and late Friday night, Google responded with a list of its own (included below). Instead of breaking off Chro…

We rounded up 40 last-minute gifts you can still grab in time for the holidays The Echo Pop is a tiny speaker with Alexa-enabled smarts, and is currently down to its best price. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The VergeBelieve it or not, we’re now just a few days away from Christmas. Don’t panic if you’ve yet to start your holiday shopping, though! While it might be too late to order some of the gifts on your holiday …

US reveals charges against alleged LockBit ransomware developer Illustration: Beatrice SalaThe US government has charged a dual Russian and Israeli national with allegedly building and maintaining LockBit’s malware code, while receiving over $230,000 in cryptocurrency for his work. The 51-year-old Rostislav Panev was arrested in Israel pending extradition to the US, making him the third member of the LockBit…

Qualcomm wins a legal battle over Arm chip licensing Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeA federal jury in Delaware determined on Friday that Qualcomm didn’t breach its agreement with Arm through its 2021 acquisition of Nuvia, a startup founded by three former Apple engineers. As reported earlier by Bloomberg and Reuters, the decision stems from a two-year-long legal battle that accused Qualcom…

Pegasus spyware maker NSO Group is liable for attacks on 1,400 WhatsApp users Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeNSO Group, the organization behind the Pegasus spyware, has been found liable in a lawsuit brought by Meta’s WhatsApp over attacks on about 1,400 devices, as reported by The Record. WhatsApp originally filed the suit in 2019, and investigations have found that Pegasus has been used to hack phones belon…

Josh King’s viral slide-out MagSafe gamepad found a home at OhSnap and looks amazing Image: Josh King / OhSnapWhen 19-year-old Josh King suggested he would single-handedly redefine mobile gaming with his 3D-printed gamepad, drawing a direct line from himself to Steve Jobs, I have to admit I thought it was a bit much! But it’s no longer just a 3D-printed controller. OhSnap, the company behind the excellent magnetic PopSocket alte…

The proposed climate fix tech companies just spent millions on? Rocks. Terradot’s pilot program in Brazil involves spreading crushed basalt over farmland. | Image: TerradotTo try to counteract the impact their pollution has on the climate, Google and other big companies have bought into a plan to trap carbon dioxide using rocks. They recently announced multimillion dollar deals with a Sheryl Sandberg-backed startup…

Three of the biggest US banks are facing a lawsuit for ‘widespread fraud’ on Zelle Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty ImagesThe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has filed a lawsuit against Zelle and three banks that own it — Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase — claiming they failed “to protect consumers from widespread fraud.” Zelle is a payment network designed to compete with payment platforms l…