Where to preorder the new Mac Pro, Mac Studio, and 15-inch MacBook Air

You can preorder Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Air starting today for $1,299. | Image: Apple

This week’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) wasn’t all about operating system updates and Apple’s new mixed reality headset. Apple also revealed a number of new Macs, including a 15-inch MacBook Air as well as revamped versions of the Mac Pro and Mac Studio with Apple Silicon. All three will be available on June 13th, though you can preorder them starting today from Apple.

Where to preorder the 15-inch MacBook Air

Starting at $1,299, Apple claims the newest MacBook Air is “the world’s thinnest 15-inch laptop.” Its 15.3-inch screen boasts 500 nits of brightness, but it’s otherwise similar to last year’s redesigned 13-inch model. It comes equipped with a 1080p webcam, a MagSafe charging connector, and Apple’s base M2 chip, which is...

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Mac Pro with M2 Ultra first look: boy, that’s a big chip

Apple just announced a new Mac Pro, and we’ve just gotten our first photos of it. It doesn’t look too different — the 2019 cheese grater design is still here — but it has a big ol’ M2 Ultra chip on the inside.

Check out the photos in the gallery below. (One interesting tidbit: Apple took the heatsink off the chip!)

The upgraded Mac Studio is also available with the M2 Ultra chip, but the Mac Pro offers expandability options that aren’t available with the Studio. The Mac Pro has a lot of ports, too, including six PCIe Gen 4 slots and eight Thunderbolt ports (six in the back and two on top), two USB-A ports, an SD card slot in the front, two 10GB ethernet ports, two HDMI ports, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The new Mac Pro is available to...

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Disney Plus is coming to Apple’s Vision Pro headset

Image: Apple

We finally got our first look at Apple’s highly anticipated mixed reality headset at today’s WWDC event, including a sneak peek at a new immersive way to watch your favorite Disney sports, shows, and movies. While most of the hype surrounding it has focused on productivity and VR gaming, Disney CEO Bob Iger took to the stage to showcase immersive experiences for the Apple Vision Pro that will be available at launch via the Disney Plus streaming service.

The Vision Pro headset provides users with a way to watch video content while being immersed in a virtual reality environment. Rather than watching a physical TV in a real, very messy lounge, users can virtually transport themselves to a new environment, such as floating in the sky or...

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Apple WWDC 10 biggest announcements: Vision Pro, MacBook Air, iOS 17, and more

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

This year’s Worldwide Developers Conference didn’t disappoint. During today’s keynote, Apple showed off its highly anticipated mixed reality headset for the first time, confirming many of the rumors that have emerged over the past several months.

While Apple’s Vision Pro headset took the spotlight this time around, the company made some other exciting hardware and software-related announcements as well. Here’s all the big news from the event.

Apple announces its Vision Pro mixed reality headset

Image: Apple

Apple has finally revealed its Vision Pro headset. The device, which lets you partake in both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences, is designed to combine the real and digital worlds both...

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Apple’s new VR headset will feature over 100 Apple Arcade games at launch

Apple Vision Pro playing NBA2K23_._ | Image: Apple

The rumors of Apple breaking into the mixed reality headset space are now a reality with the Apple Vision Pro. During 2023’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced that, in addition to offering functions like VR FaceTime and watching movies in living room-K on “a screen that feels 100 feet wide,” the new face-mounted spatial computer will also be a gaming platform featuring titles from Apple Arcade.

At launch, over 100 Apple Arcade games will be available on the Vision Pro. The presentation didn’t highlight any existing VR games specifically or mention if any of the games featured had been updated for a VR experience. But users will be able to play games like NBA 2K23 on the Vision Pro using controllers ostensibly connected to...

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Hands-on with the new 15-inch MacBook Air

Apple just announced the new MacBook Air 15, a 15-inch version of the most popular laptop in the world. I just saw it in person. As you can probably guess, it’s just like the smaller MacBook Air, but now it’s bigger.

There were literally no surprises from the hands-on. It feels just like the 13.5-inch model from last year. It’s thinner and lighter and less dense than a 16-inch MacBook Pro, as you’d expect, with a screen that isn’t as nice. It does have six speakers, but I didn’t get to test them.

Apple claims 18 hours of battery life from this one, which starts at $1,299 today (it’s already on sale) and ships next week, while the...

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Apple Vision Pro first look: the mixed reality future is (almost) here

What does the Apple Vision Pro look like? Imagine a pair of ski goggles. The fanciest, most sci-fi ski goggles you’ve ever seen. There, you’ve got it.

Apple just announced the Vision Pro headset at its WWDC developer conference, during which executives spent a long time detailing both how the hardware works and how you’re meant to use it. After the event, we were able to take a brief look at the $3,499 Vision Pro itself — we couldn’t use it or even touch it, but we could gaze upon its metallic wonders in a demo room at the Steve Jobs Theater.

Based on the little bit we’ve seen, it’s a dramatically better-looking device than any other AR or VR headset we’ve seen. The actual headset itself is quite thin, and most of the device’s heft and...

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Microsoft Word, Excel, and Teams are all coming to Apple’s new Vision Pro headset

Word, Excel, and Teams on the Apple Vision Pro. | Image: Apple

Apple has just announced its new $3,499 Vision Pro augmented reality headset, and Microsoft is ready to bring its Word, Excel, and Microsoft Teams apps to Apple’s new platform.

Apple briefly demonstrated Excel, Word, and Teams running inside the Vision Pro headset, with a user interface that can be controlled with your eyes. Microsoft appears to be using a similar simplified ribbon interface that’s available on its existing web versions of Excel and Word.

While Apple didn’t demonstrate too much of the Teams interface, it did reveal that Microsoft will be supporting its 3D personas. These digital personas are built using machine learning techniques to recreate your face virtually. Zoom and Webex will also support these 3D personas on the...

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Apple announces visionOS, the operating system for its Vision Pro headset

Image: Apple

Apple has announced visionOS, the operating system that will power its new Vision Pro headset. Apple says it’s designed from the ground up for spatial computing.

The company revealed the operating system as part of its many announcements at the Worldwide Developers Conference 2023 event. The operating system is focused on displaying digital elements on top of the real world. Apple’s video showed new things like icons and windows floating over real world spaces. Apple is also relying on eye-tracking — the company described how you can look at a search field and just start talking to input text.

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

It seems Apple envisions this in part as a productivity device; in one demo, it showed a...

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StandBy is a new iPhone feature that could be great for Apple Home users

StandBy will turn your iPhone into an always-on display when charging. | Image by Dan Siefert / The Verge

Apple has announced StandBy — a new feature that turns the iPhone into a sort of smart display when it’s docked on its side. The company announced this new trick onstage at WWDC 2023 while debuting iOS 17, which is expected to arrive this fall.

StandBy comes with iOS 17 and kicks in automatically when your iPhone is charging and on its side. It’s designed to be seen from a distance and can display the time with customizable clock faces, Apple Home controls, the weather, music controls, app smart stacks, and other features. At night, StandBy adapts the screen to lowlight, taking on a red tone to avoid being disruptive at night.

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

StandBy can adapt to low light to work as a nighttime...

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Apple announces new Safari profiles and WebKit features

You can now share passwords and passkeys using iCloud Keychain through Safari. | Image: Apple

Apple’s latest version of Safari was announced at WWDC as part of the newly announced macOS Sonoma. The new browser version brings new privacy features that include the ability to lock your browser window, block trackers, and remove URL trackers. Safari can also now share passwords and passkeys to groups using iCloud Keychain. The transfer is done with end-to-end encryption.

Perhaps the biggest new addition to Safari is the ability to create profiles. Now when you’re browsing, you can sandbox your activities separately for things like work and personal browsing. The feature will help keep data and trackers from mixing between each other and help you browse more organized.

Image: Apple

New web app Add to Dock...

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Apple Vision Pro is Apple’s new AR headset

Apple’s Vision Pro headset. | Image: Apple

Apple has announced an augmented reality headset called Apple Vision Pro that “seamlessly” blends the real and digital world. “It’s the first Apple product you look through, and not at,” CEO Tim Cook said of the device, which looks like a pair of ski goggles. As rumored, it features a separate battery pack and is controlled with eyes, hands, and voice.

Vision Pro is positioned as primarily an AR device, but it can switch between augmented and full virtual reality using a dial. The device is controller-free, and you browse rows of app icons by looking at them. You can tap to select and flick to scroll, and you can also give voice commands. On top of that, the headset supports Bluetooth accessories and lets you connect your Mac to use...

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FaceTime is coming to Apple TV with tvOS 17

FaceTime on an Apple TV. | Image: Apple

Apple is bringing FaceTime to Apple TV. As part of an upcoming tvOS 17 update, a new FaceTime app will be made available that uses your iPhone or iPad camera to bring video calls to your big-screen TV.

Apple is making use of its Continuity Camera feature so that you can launch the FaceTime app on Apple TV and it will wirelessly connect to your iPhone or iPad. You can even pick up a call that’s taking place on your iPhone and transfer it to your Apple TV.

Image: Apple

Moving a FaceTime call to an Apple TV.

The main FaceTime interface on Apple TV will intelligently center speakers and even adapts the frame if others join in. You can use all the typical FaceTime effects you use on your phone, and because SharePlay...

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watchOS 10 is bringing back widgets in a big way

Widgets are back in watchOS 10. | Screenshot: The Verge

Apple announced watchOS 10, its “milestone” next-gen smartwatch platform, today at WWDC. As in past years, it’ll be available for developers to start tinkering with today, while a public beta is expected sometime next month. Users can expect to see the final version arrive later this fall alongside the forthcoming Apple Watch Series 9.

Widgets are back on the menu, friends. Turning the digital crown will bring up your widget stack and let you scroll through for quick and easy access to information. It’s a major shift in how users have thus far interacted with the Apple Watch and is reminiscent of the Siri watchface introduced a few years ago in watchOS 3.

Apple Watch apps — including Weather, Stocks, Home, Maps, Messages, and World Clock...

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Hideo Kojima will bring his games to Mac, starting with Death Stranding

Image: Apple

Hideo Kojima made a brief but interesting appearance during WWDC 2023, as Apple highlighted the power of its latest M2 chips, and a new game mode in macOS Sonoma. During the gaming portion of the conference, the director revealed that not only is he bringing Death Stranding Director’s Cutto macOS but his other titles as well. However, Kojima didn’t specify when Director’s Cut will make its Mac appearance nor which other games in his omnibus he’s porting to Mac.

Kojima’s appearance at WWDC 2023 might tease that he’ll have some role to play during Summer Game Fest event that kicks off later this week. Death Stranding Director’s Cut might make an appearance during the presentation as well as its sequel Death Stranding 2. Announced during...

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Apple’s AirPods are about to get much smarter with Adaptive Audio and Conversation Awareness

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Apple has made a habit of announcing new AirPods software features at its WWDC keynote. Two years ago, those included Conversation Boost and deeper Find My integration. A year before that, the company introduced spatial audio and automatic device switching. Today at WWDC 2023, the company announced several new enhancements, including Adaptive Audio, which intelligently blends noise cancellation and transparency passthrough based on your surroundings.

Adaptive Audio will appear as an additional option beside full active noise cancellation and transparency mode. When active, the AirPods Pro constantly analyze your environment and adjust ANC and transparency for the optimal listening experience.

A “conversation awareness” feature will...

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Tesla Model S Plaid with new Track Pack sets a Nürburgring record

The team celebrates the new production EV lap record at Nürburgring. | Image: Tesla

Tesla’s Model S Plaid returned to the world-famous Nürburgring race course in Germany on Saturday, and it set a new best lap record for a production EV. The Model S Plaid completed the 12.9-mile lap in just 7 minutes and 25.231 seconds while being equipped with a new Track Pack system that upgrades the car’s components and software.

This new record beats Tesla’s own previous best time of 7 minutes and 30.909 seconds set in 2021. Although the 2021 lap time was set based on a measured 12.8-mile version of the Nürburgring track, Tesla had also set an official 12.9-mile record for 7 minutes and 35.579 seconds on the same day. Either way, Tesla now has two authentic Model S records ahead of Porsche’s 2019 record with the all-electric Taycan...

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Apple announces macOS Sonoma with support for desktop widgets and screensavers

Image: Apple

Apple has just unveiled macOS Sonoma, the latest version of its desktop operating system, onstage at WWDC 2023. The headline features are support for widgets on the desktop, as well as new moving screensavers that can also serve as your wallpaper. Based on Apple’s release strategy in previous years, it should be available in developer beta imminently as a public beta in the coming weeks. General availability is expected later this year.

Widgets are designed to fade into the background when you open a window, and the Mac can access widgets from an iPhone if a device is one the same Wi-Fi network. Widgets are also interactive, with one demo showing how you can control a connected vehicle from the desktop widget.

There’s...

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Apple’s iPadOS 17 adds personalized lock screen and interactive widgets

Apple offered a preview of iPadOS 17 at WWDC 2023 today. The new tablet software update is set to gain many of the same features of iOS 17, including a handful of new Messages features (like automatic voice note transcriptions), expanded AirDrop capabilities, and smarter autocorrect for text input.

The iPad is also catching up to iOS with the ability to personalize the lock screen; this works much the same way that it does on the iPhone. Apple’s software VP Craig Federighi also showcased new interactive widgets that can be placed on the homescreen. iPadOS 17 will also bring over the Health app. And last, the iPad will be able to display Live Activities just like iOS.

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

iPadOS 17...

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Apple is changing the ‘Hey Siri’ trigger phrase to just ‘Siri’ in iOS 17

Image: Apple

Apple is changing Siri’s trigger phrase from “Hey Siri” to just “Siri.” The change, part of iOS 17, will make it easier to summon the virtual assistant on iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other devices and follows a report from Bloomberg in November that Apple was working on moving Siri to a single wake word.

Apple has been using “Hey Siri” up until now since the underlying engineering and training work is easier against a two-word trigger phrase. Moving to a single wake word is a significant shift, even if it might seem simple. Amazon allows Alexa users to trigger the assistant using “Hey Alexa” or just “Alexa,” and even Microsoft supported just “Cortana” as a wake word before shutting down its voice assistant on iOS and Android in 2021.

G...

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Journal is Apple’s new journaling app for iOS

Image: Apple

Apple has unveiled Journal, a new journaling app for iOS that allows iPhone users to regularly log their daily activities. Announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, Journal is the company’s latest step into the health and wellness segment, joining other iOS apps like Fitness, Sleep, and Breathe that help users track and manage aspects of their everyday lives.

Journal will be released on iOS 17, which is expected to roll out in September later this year. Apple says that the new iPhone app will use on-device machine learning to curate personalized suggestions to inspire what users will write about, pulling information from messages, pictures, music, workouts, location data, and more. Journal is end-to-end encrypted,...

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Apple announces iOS 17

iOS 17 is official.

Apple’s iOS 17 is official, making its debut on WWDC 2023’s keynote stage. Highlights include new safety features, a built-in journaling app, a new nightstand mode, redesigned contact cards, better auto-correct and voice transcription, and live voicemail. And you’ll be able to drop the “hey” from “Hey Siri.”

Your contact book is getting an update with a new feature called posters, which turns contact cards into flashy marquee-like images that show up full-screen on your recipient’s iPhone when you call them. They use a similar design language as the redesigned lock screens, with bold typography options and the ability to add Memoji, and will work with third-party VoIP apps. There’s also a new live transcription feature for voicemail...

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Apple announces Mac Pro with M2 Ultra, starting at $6,999

It’s finally happening. Apple is bringing back the Mac Pro with new chips designed for 2023. It’s the first big update to the Mac Pro in four years, and it completes Apple’s transition to its own Arm-powered Silicon. The new Mac Pro model will be available starting June 13th for $6,999.

The new Mac Pro looks the same as the old Intel version with the cheese grater metal front, but there are some major changes on the inside. The Mac Pro will come with Apple’s M2 Ultra chip, as well as six open PCIe Gen 4 slots for expansion, and offer eight built-in Thunderbolt ports. It can be configured with up to a 76-core GPU and 192GB of memory. With a fully specced model, Apple says it can be up to 3x faster than the old Intel version.

...

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Apple’s Mac Studio gets an M2 Ultra and Max upgrade

The M1-powered Mac Studio. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Apple is updating its Mac Studio desktop system with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips. The miniature desktop Mac Studio has the same design as last year’s M1-powered device but much more powerful processors inside. The updated Mac Studio will start at $1,999 and start shipping on June 13th.

M2 Ultra is the big news here, with Apple describing it as “a monster of a chip.” It’s essentially two M2 Max dies connected with Apple’s UltraFusion technology, with a 24-core CPU and up to a 76-core GPU that’s 30 percent faster than the M1 Ultra. Apple claims that a single system with this type of GPU can train ML workloads that discrete GPUs can’t handle due to memory constraints.

That’s because the M2 Ultra supports up to 192GB of unified memory, 50...

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Apple’s new 15-inch MacBook Air is the ‘world’s thinnest’

Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Air | Image: Apple

Apple has unveiled a new 15-inch MacBook Air at its 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple claims that the device will be “the world’s best 15-inch laptop.” It’ll come with Apple’s M2 chip.

The new model is 11.5mm thick, which Apple says makes it the world’s thinnest 15-inch laptop, and it will weigh just over three pounds. It has two USB-C Thunderbolt ports (supporting up to a 6K external display), a MagSafe charging connector, and a headphone jack and will come in both midnight, starlight, space gray, and silver colors. Its 15.3-inch screen (sporting five-millimeter bezels) has 500 nits of brightness. There’s also a 1080p FaceTime HD webcam, three microphones with “advanced beamforming algorithms”, and six speakers (two teeters...

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The SEC’s case against Binance, a live reading by Liz Lopatto

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Let’s enjoy some legal documents together!

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Here are the best Kindle deals right now

The latest Kindle Paperwhite is on sale at Amazon with a power adapter and a fabric cover starting at $169.97. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge

When it comes to finding a device to use to read your ebooks, you have a few options to choose from. You can always buy a tablet or use your phone, but those devices are multipurpose and can be used for a ton of things, like surfing the web or doom-scrolling on Twitter. If you are looking for something to strictly read books, e-readers, while niche, are designed to store all of your books in a virtual library with limited functionality.

Amazon, one of the pioneers of the e-reader, has dominated the space for years with its ever-expanding Kindle lineup, which consists of several unique models with their own pros and cons. The bulk of the devices function as simple ebook readers; however, with the Kindle Scribe, Amazon looks to be moving...

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Live blog: Apple’s VR headset, iOS 17, and more at WWDC 2023

Illustration: The Verge

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is here, and rumors suggest a brand-new virtual reality headset will get top billing.

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The SEC is suing Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, operated illegally in the US, the US Securities and Exchange Commission alleges in a new lawsuit. Changpeng Zhao, the exchange’s founder, was named in the suit as well.

“Defendants have enriched themselves by billions of U.S. dollars while placing investors’ assets at significant risk,” the suit begins. It alleges that Binance and Zhao illegally solicited investors, engaged in multiple unregistered investment schemes, and “defrauded equity, retail, and institutional investors about purported surveillance and controls over manipulative trading on the Binance.US Platform, which were in fact virtually nonexistent.”

“We will issue a response once we see the complaint,” Zhao wrote on Twitter....

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Zoom can now give you AI summaries of the meetings you’ve missed

Image: Zoom

Zoom now lets users use AI to catch up on missed meetings. The feature, which Zoom first announced in March, has finally arrived as a trial for users in “select plans,” according to a post on Zoom’s website.

With Zoom IQ — the app’s AI-powered assistant — hosts can now generate summaries of meetings and send them to users through Zoom Team Chat or email, all without actually recording the meetings. It’s hard to tell how accurate (or detailed) the meeting summaries are without trying them out for ourselves, but it still seems like a much quicker way to get a recap on anything you’ve missed, as opposed to watching an entire prerecorded meeting.

In addition to AI-generated meeting summaries, Zoom is launching the ability to compose messages...

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