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I appreciate devices that don’t try to do too much. There are too many products throwing too many features at the consumer in the hope one or two sticks. I’m reminded of the recently revived Pebble, which offers a pared down way to check your phone’s notifications from your wrist, and little else. That’s the best way to describe Even Realities’ G1 smart glasses, which puts a second screen for your smartphone on your face.

G1 is almost aggressively low-tech, putting in your line of sight a dot matrix display that’ll leap into life when required. You’ll be able to see the time, phone notifications, calendar, stock and news updates from a handful of chosen publishers. Tap the temple tips (also known as earpieces) and you’ll be able to speak to an AI to answer questions or dictate a note without touching your phone at all. Open the app to activate heads-up turn-by-turn directions, access real-time translation and use the glasses as a portable teleprompter.

On devices like this, the limited feature set goes hand-in-hand with lowered expectations: If it promises the basics and delivers them, all good, right? Problems arise when it fails to do them well, or if it’s obvious to anyone there are features that would work here but have been omitted. The G1 doesn't stumble on the essentials, but I do find myself flip-flopping about how much praise they should get. They’re useful right now, but I’d love to see how much better they’ll get in a year or two.

Hardware Daniel Cooper for Engadget

Until the laws of physics change quite dramatically, smart glasses will always be noticeably bigger and heavier than their siblings. But the G1 is hardly an embarrassment in those stakes, and while chunky, they’re not comically oversized. The frame is built from magnesium and titanium alloy and weighs in at 44 grams. That’s more than the 26 grams my regular glasses weigh, but not to such an extent that it’s burdensome. It’s no surprise to learn some of the company’s leadership team came from the glasses industry, including stints at high-end eyewear brand Lindberg and Mykita.

Each lens houses a rectangular waveguide with a 25-degree field of view displaying a 640 x 200 20Hz dot matrix green monochrome screen. It brings to mind the old workstation terminals from the early 1990s. This isn’t shameless hipsterism, since green is more easily seen by the eye, and it also reduces the display’s power consumption, which is useful since the maximum brightness is 1,000 nits, and you’ll need all of it to see your screen on a bright day.

Much of the hardware is housed in the temple tips — the bits sitting behind your ears, if you’re not au fait with glasses terminology. These chunky boxes include the wireless charging gear, 160mAh battery, Bluetooth LE 5.2 radio and the touch control sensors. As for the rest, the projector and microphones are housed in the end pieces (the hinges on the frame), and that’s it. There’s no camera, speakers, headphones, bone conduction audio or any touch surface along the arms themselves, because the makers expect you to have your own camera and audio gear.

In the box, you’ll get the glasses and USB-C charging case, the latter of which has its own 2,000mAh battery which the company says will charge your glasses two and a half times before you need to head back to a socket. You can also get a pair of clip-on sunglass lenses for your specs to ensure you can wear them outdoors. I had initially presumed, given the heft of the original investment, that the clip-on glasses were thrown in but no, they’ll set you back an additional $100 in the US, €100 in Europe or £85 in the UK.

Glasses need to be up to the challenge of withstanding the same conditions the rest of your head is exposed to. Even Realities says the G1 can resist a “splash" or "light rain,” but doesn’t include a specific IP rating, so you may need to baby them a little.

There is only one size of the G1 available, and the company says it’ll suit anyone with a pupillary distance between 54 and 80. The temples can be adjusted to go looser or tighter, depending on the unique topography of your skull. But the frames are fairly stylish, and if you prefer the rounded “Panto” style of glasses, or a squarer one, you can opt for the B1 model instead.

Naturally, glasses aren’t a one-and-done deal, with most folks changing their prescriptions on a bi-annual basis. Even Realities says that you should be able to send your glasses back to HQ when your eyesight changes, along with your updated prescription, for up-to-date lenses. In the EU that’ll cost €230, or if you’re further abroad, €240 ($260).

Random musing about Smart Glasses vs AR

I’ve deliberately not referred to the G1 as a pair of augmented reality glasses because I don’t think they fit the description. The dictionary says AR is anything that puts a digital view in front of the real world, but that’s too broad a definition. After all, if I held a paper map in my line of sight I wouldn’t be augmenting my reality as the map doesn’t engage with its environment. And it’s the same thing here — just because the display in question is transparent doesn’t, for me, move the needle enough for it to be classified as AR.

In-use Daniel Cooper for Engadget

Charge the glasses, download the app and you’ll walk through the brief setup and tutorial process. Software updates take around five minutes each time, surprisingly long given the low-tech nature of the system. Put the glasses on and you’ll notice the waveguide prisms add a slight tint to whatever you’re looking at. For instance, when staring at a white page on my computer, the prism adds a hint of gold that’s noticeable compared to the white around it.

The glasses are deactivated by default, behaving like any regular pair of specs as you go about your day. If you want to look up at the dashboard, which is your home screen, you’ll need to tilt your head up. This is the first thing you’ll define in the settings: How far you need to move your head up to trigger the dashboard. I found I had to tweak it regularly, given my head naturally drift upwards more often when I'm, say, relaxing against the sofa versus standing at my desk.

Daniel Cooper for Engadget

The dashboard is the first sign the G1 has some limitations. You only have three layout options for what you can see, one of which is the Status Pane, which is always on. Status shows you the time, date, temperature, a notification indicator and (when required) low battery warnings. You can add one widget or two, but if you pick two, one of those widgets will default to your calendar. The other widgets include News, Stocks, QuickNotes or a Map.

News, Stocks and Maps feel like the default options you get with every gadget while its makers work out what its users really want and need. The news feed pulls from a handful of outlets and you can select from which categories (Politics, Science, Sports and the like) you want to see. The map view gives you a little peek at your location to the nearest 25, 50 or 100 meters, which I’m sure is helpful for some folks, like delivery drivers. But I’m not sure there are many folks who want or need to have this information so immediately at hand.

Notifications

You’ll be able to gatekeep which apps you can permit to be put through to your glasses, and when you get a message, a speech bubble will pop up on your blank display. When it appears, you can just flick your head up to see the message, or tap the temple tip while in Dashboard.

It’s the same limited message you would get with any basic wearable connected to your iPhone. The obvious benefit is removing the need for you to get your phone out of your pocket or look at your wrist.

On a Saturday jaunt into the city, several of my group chats sprung into life and I was able to keep abreast of the conversation without having to look at my phone. That was a real benefit, as I’d have been frustrated if I’d have had to check my pocket on the regular for messages that didn’t entirely concern me. The only downside is that you can’t do anything with the messages, like respond to them, unless you do finally succumb to your phone.

Teleprompt, Transcribe and QuickNote

Even Realities

Even if you’re comfortable speaking off the cuff, using the G1 as a teleprompter is a staggeringly good idea. As soon as I started using it, I was thinking they would be great for shooting review videos, as well as giving presentations and acting. Hell, I’ve recited the Gettysburg Address a few too many times in the last week.

The glasses will also offer a way to turn what it’s hearing into text, either with the dedicated Transcription setup, or the QuickNote action. For the latter, all you need to do is touch a temple tip and you can then speak, with the system picking up your words and turning them into text. You’ll then be able to read the note, and play back the audio recording in the app, although you can only share the text of what you’ve said. It’s perhaps a lot more pertinent to journalists than other folks but the ability to have such easy access to a tool like this is exciting.

Translation

The G1s presently support real-time translation of 24 languages, including the major European languages, Arabic, Cantonese, Hindi, Japanese, Korean and Turkish. After you open the app, select the language in question and activate the feature, you’ll get a translation two or three seconds later when someone talks to you. I’ve tested the feature with native French and Turkish speakers and while the translations did at times miss a word, the overall sentiment was well conveyed.

Without a doubt, this is one of the glasses’ most eye-catching and useful features, since it subtitles the real world. But while the idea and implementation is all there, it’s not as sci-fi perfect as it could or should be, and that’s a problem. For a start, there’s the obvious moment you have to wait for while the system translates what your counterpart has said. Then there’s the fact it’ll translate anything it can hear, so when I asked my Turkish friend to speak to me, and then I read out the translation in English, the glasses tried to translate my response back into English.

Everything’s far more reliant on the app than it could be — you can’t activate the feature or swap languages without having the phone in your hand. If you were able to switch the options around with a tap on the touch sensor, you could theoretically have a conversation just with the glasses. But as soon as you need the phone in your hand, it’s easier to just open up Google Translate and harness the power of conversation mode.

Navigation

The ability to project basic information in your line of sight is enormously helpful when it comes to navigation. After all, if you’re wandering around unfamiliar streets, then you probably don’t want to appear to look like you’re lost. Certainly, the spate of phone thefts where well-prepared poachers snatch devices from people’s hands is a sign of that. Much like every other feature, you’ll start by… opening the app, activating the navigation pane and setting your destination.

You can pick walking or cycling directions, and you’ll get a turn-by-turn layout on the phone as well as in the glasses. Once the route has been calculated, which will take a second, you can put the phone in your pocket and start moving around. On the left, you’ll get the road name, an arrow for your direction and the distance in meters before the next move. In the middle, you’ll get the projected journey time and distance, and on the right a mini-map showing you the route. Look up (triggering the Dashboard) and you’ll get a full sized route map showing your progress as well as an indication of your speed. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t adore this feature and would love to test it out while roaming an unfamiliar city, because it’s supremely effortless.

Even AI

Rounding out the spec list is Even AI which, at the tap of the left temple tip, will be available for you to ask questions. Even AI is essentially just an interaction layer for either Perplexity, which is the default AI client, or ChatGPT. Press the button and you’ll be able to ask it questions, the answers of which will then be displayed in your field of view.

If you have a beginner’s knowledge of AI, by which I mean a fundamental distrust of anything it says, then this might be useful. Defining words, answering basic questions like “Who is Florence Nightingale” and looking up facts like the price of Bitcoin are all easily done. But that’s all, I think, I’d trust any AI to do, given how generally incapable of providing useful information it is.

Controls

There are two buttons, one on each temple tip, which will let you engage EvenAI or QuickNotes and scroll through notifications. Two buttons, however, even with the ability to accept multiple taps, is a little too few input mechanisms for a device this sophisticated. I keep thinking about the ways you can control true wireless headphones with all of that rhythmic tapping and that’s just for audio playback.

It means you’ll be relying on your phone a lot more than you may like, and while it’s not a deal breaker, it is an issue. After all, if these glasses offer a way of spending more time engaging with the world around me, then I don’t want to be constantly snatching up my phone. I imagine this is another area that, as the software develops and more commands can be incorporated into the buttons, things will get easier. But it is, for now, a fairly significant frustration.

Battery Life

I’d consider myself a fairly heavy user, and I would regularly get a day and a half’s worth of life from the G1 glasses before needing a recharge. It’s vexing in the extreme that the glasses don’t have an off switch, so they’ll be draining an admittedly small amount of power when not in use. I suspect, if I was living with these full time, I’d get into the habit of keeping them in their charging cradle on the nightstand while in bed to avoid any inadvertent losses of power while out and about.

Price

Even Realities’ G1 is available in two different frame styles: The G1A with the “panto” round-rim style and the G1B, with a rectangular frame. If I’m honest, I’d have preferred to test the G1B, which is more in keeping with my regular glasses preference, but c’est la vie. The glasses on their own cost $599, with corrective lenses costing you an extra $150 and the sunglass clip an additional $100. It puts these glasses in the same sort of territory as the highest-end designer frames you can get at LensCrafters.

I’m not sure there’s a mainstream competitor sitting in exactly the same category as the G1. There are similar headsets, like TCL’s RayNeo, but that has a far higher resolution display since it promises real AR. The Frame by Brilliant Labs, perhaps, but that only has a display in one lens and relies far more upon AI to operate. Captify’s glasses use binocular vision but are only designed to offer real-time captioning for users with hearing loss. Vuzix’s Z100 only has the display in one lens and, as far as I understand it, Meizu’s Myvu glasses are only available in eastern countries. Which means, for now, Even Realities is your one stop for a product like this.

And while they’re not in the same category at all, it feels negligent to not even mention Meta and Ray-Ban’s Wayfarers. The retail price may be cheaper but, once you’ve added prescription lenses they’ll set you back around $600, putting them close to the G1. But they’re obviously a very different product, with no heads-up display and a greater emphasis on AI and photography.

Wrap-Up Daniel Cooper for Engadget

I really like Even Realities’ G1 for what they can do right now, but I’m also hopeful that it’ll get far more useful in the future. It seems to me there are so many things that could be tweaked, primped and plumped to make these far more appealing.

I’d love to be able to switch the translation mode with a press of the temple tip, so I could get a translation of what’s said, flip it to translate my English to the other language and then say it back to them so we could actually have a(n admittedly stilted) conversation. Adding reminders and other options to the dashboard would make it a lot more desirable to use. Hell, imagine a future dashboard update that pulls your step count from your phone so you can see how well you’re moving. Not to mention the ability to offer some form of real-time captioning for users who may have hearing issues.

I’m not going to judge the G1 on its potential but for what it offers now, and what it offers now is plenty good enough. The biggest obstacle is the price, but what can you expect for a first generation product in a niche category? When speaking to friends about them, many said if the price wasn’t that much more than a regular pair of glasses, they’d struggle to say no to what’s on offer here. And I agree, once you’ve had a taste of the functionality that’s on show here, it’s hard to go back to normal.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/even-realities-g1-review-limited-but-effective-smart-glasses-140059586.html?src=rss

Nothing has enough storage these days. Whether it's a Mac or a PS5, it feels like everyone I know spends far too much time deleting things on their devices to clear up space. That annoyance is what makes SSDs so appealing, especially the Crucial X9 Pro. 

We find the Crucial X9 Pro to be the best portable SSD for most people and, right now, the 1TB model is down to $70 from $101. The 31 percent discount brings this device to only $10 more than its all-time low price. If you need even more storage then pick up the 2TB option for $120, down from $180, or the 4TB one for $210, down from $279.

The Crucial X9 Pro is our favorite portable SSD for a few reasons, including excellent performance for its speed class and its very compact size. It uses a USB-C cord to connect with devices like an Xbox, PC, PS4 or 5, Mac and more. Plus, it offers a five-year warranty. One of our biggest quips with the Crucial X9 Pro is the price, but the sale really takes care of that. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/our-favorite-portable-ssd-is-up-to-33-percent-off-right-now-140645047.html?src=rss

The weather is turning warmer, so it's about time to hang up that winter coat with the big pockets you use to store everything. That also means things might be a bit harder to keep track of now — I lost my phone, alone, multiple times over this sunny weekend. But, now there's a (cheaper) potential solution: The Chipolo One bluetooth tracker.

Right now, a four-pack of Chipolo Ones is down to $50 from $75 — a 33 percent discount. This sale is a record-low price for this set of our favorite Bluetooth tracker for 2025. It also offers two different color sets to choose between and is a great deal if you want multiple trackers (just one is usually $20). 

Beyond the convenient keyhole (sorry Apple), we like the Chipolo One for features like how loud it is when you're searching for something — plus, it never has a delay when you press find. It's also very quick to ask if you've left something behind and works equally well with an iPhone or Android. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/a-four-pack-of-chipolo-one-trackers-drops-to-an-all-time-low-of-50-131257240.html?src=rss

Anker’s lifestyle brand Eufy has already swallowed a big chunk of the robot vacuum market and now it’s got its sights on your yard. The company has been sharing details of its first two robot mowers since the start of the year, and now they’re ready to start selling them. Eufy’s E15 and E18 are designed to automate one of the most tedious jobs around the home — if you’re able to pay. I’ve been testing an E15 for the last few weeks ahead of their retail debut today and I’m fairly impressed.

Early robot mowers needed a boundary wire to tell them where they were allowed to mow. But digging a trench around your lawn is time consuming, costly and less than ideal if you eventually move. It prompted companies to pivot to other methods, such as GPS or RTK (real time kinematics) to navigate. Eufy, however, is harnessing its computer vision know-how to trim your lawn with even less fuss, calling its technology “visual full self-driving,” or vFSD. Yes, I know. Anker says there are plenty of benefits in using cameras over GPS, like more reliable mowing and better obstacle avoidance.

Daniel Cooper for Engadget

The E15 is capable of covering lawns up to 800 square meters while the E18 will conquer lands as broad as 1,200 square meters. If you assumed, like I did, that the difference between the two is battery size, you’ll be mistaken — both have the same 4,200mAh battery, but the E18 has more on-board memory to accommodate a bigger map size. Otherwise, they are the same machine, with an adjustable cutting height between 25 - 75mm, a maximum climb of 18 degrees and a combined GPS / 4G anti-theft system. One feature I’m very partial to is that the garage (the mower’s charging station) comes with a rain cover, meaning fewer worries if you’re out and the weather suddenly gets a bit intense. Not that it’s necessary, since the hardware is rated IPX6 — enough to withstand being cleaned with a hose.

Setting up the E15 is painless so long as your lawn is nicely mown, with the grass no taller than 3.5 inches. All you’ll need to do is fix the garage in place with some hefty ground screws, hook it up to power and connect it to your home’s Wi-Fi. Then all you’ll need to do is send it out for one or two mapping runs in order for it to get a sense of your space.

Daniel Cooper for Engadget

My lawn is cut into a hill, with a sunken pathway and a 1.5 meter drop at one end, which is a problem. Since it maps visually, I opted to babysit the mower during the process to make sure it didn’t hurl itself into the chasm. I also have a small lean-to wood shed with a green roof (at the bottom of the chasm) that I reckoned a computer vision system could easily mistake for grass, so I wanted to keep an eye on it. Once it had made a few too many furtive advances toward that roof, I paused the mapping, sent the E15 back to its garage and set up a keep out zone in the app before finishing the job.

Once that was done, however, the E15 very easily staked out the rest of the space and made sure it could get nicely close to the path without going over. From there, you’re doing everything of note within the app. You can set the cutting height as low as 25mm or as high as 75mm, and can also set the unit’s movement and cutting speed — letting you use more power if you’re pressed for time. Plus, you can schedule mows, and if the device detects rain or too much wet in the grass, it’ll head back to base until things have dried out.

One feature I’m a big fan of is that it’s the first such machine I’ve encountered that lets you set a cutting direction for stripes. It’s not that I have an issue with most robomowers’ chaotic mowing per se, but I’ve always seen striped lawns as desirable. While the unit isn’t going to give you the sort of over-manicured, inch-perfect stripes you’d find at a tennis club, you can at least see the contrast.

Daniel Cooper for Engadget

An additional benefit of remote control is that if it does run into an issue and you’re not at home, you can activate a remote control mode. Not only are you able to access the camera feed, but you can trigger on-screen controls to navigate out of any tricky spots it might have wound up in.

It's funny, but something I didn't notice, but my in-laws did when they visited, was how shockingly quiet the E15 was. When I set the hardware running to satisfy their curiosity, they were baffled that the thing was scuttling around on the lawn making almost no noise whatsoever. It's certainly a perk, especially if you choose to set this thing off for a scheduled trim in the early morning — it's quiet enough that even the ants probably won't complain. 

All in all, I like the package Eufy is offering, and it even handled some of my misgivings about its computer vision system. If I have gripes, it’s not really about the E-series at all and more about this category of product generally. For a start, robot mowers may not get every square inch of your lawn, especially if some of your edges neighbor deep crevasses, like mine. That means you’ll still need to go out there every once in a while with a weed wacker to trim the borders of your turf.

And I’d still love nothing more than to be able to exert more control over the initial mapping phase to eliminate some of the trial and error. I wish for a system that would let me use my phone as a tool to trace the outside edge of a space myself, to set some basic expectations. Sure, the hardware would still have to scuttle around making sure it can get where I need it to go, but it’d save some of the busywork for both of us.

The Eufy E15 (800 sqm) and E18 (1,200 sqm) are available to order today from Eufy and Amazon. The E15 will set you back $1,599, while E18 is priced at $1,999.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/eufys-new-robot-mowers-use-smart-vision-to-trim-your-grass-130008542.html?src=rss

The iPhone’s lock screen isn’t just the place you check the time or your notifications anymore — it’s a fully customizable space where you can express your personality, highlight your favorite photos and even stay on top of your day with helpful widgets. With iOS 18, Apple has given users even more control, letting you personalize your home screen and adjust lock screen controls..

Whether you want something functional, minimal, photo-heavy or playful, we’ll walk you through exactly how to make your lock screen your own — from changing fonts and adding widgets to switching between screens throughout the day.

How to create a custom lock screen

To start personalizing, you’ll first need to create a new lock screen or modify an existing one.

1. Wake your iPhone, then touch and hold anywhere on the lock screen until you feel a buzz and see the wallpaper editor.

2. You’ll see a carousel of lock screens you’ve created. Tap the “+” (Add New) button to start fresh, or swipe to an existing one and tap Customize.

3. A gallery of wallpaper options will appear. Choose from:

• Photos (pick one from your library)

• People (iOS intelligently finds portraits)

• Photo Shuffle (select multiple images that change)

• Emoji, Weather, or Astronomy

• Suggested themes like color gradients or Live Photos

Once you’ve picked your background, you can dive into the fun part: customizing fonts, colors, widgets and more.

Georgie Peru for Engadget Photos and People

You can set a favorite picture as your wallpaper and tweak its color or crop to make sure you have the best view of your loved ones. Note that these steps will only allow you to select one picture — if you want a rotating selection of backgrounds, skip to the Photo Shuffle section below.

1. Tap Photos to bring up a list of Photos and Collections. You can search for specific images, or filter by All, Featured, Live Photo, People, Pets, Nature and Cities.

2. Once you’ve selected a photo, you then have more options. You can Pinch to Crop the image, change and customize the filters (Natural, Black & White, Duotone and Color Wash)

3. You also have the option to Add Widgets and remove the Flashlight and/or Camera.

You can also set a photo as your wallpaper directly from the Photos app by tapping the Share icon, and then selecting “Use as Wallpaper.”

Photo Shuffle

With Photo Shuffle, you can select multiple photos that change depending on the frequency you’ve selected.

1. Select the types of photos you want to include, e.g. People, Pets, Nature and Cities, or select an Album.

2. Tap the Shuffle Frequency option and choose between On Tap, On Lock, Hourly or Daily.

3. Select whether you want to “Use Featured Photos” or “Select Photos Manually.”

4. It would be worth going through your selected photos separately to make sure they are cropped correctly (e.g. if you have a mix of landscape and portrait images).

5. You also have the option to Add Widgets and remove the Flashlight and/or Camera.

Emoji and Color

If you don’t want to use a photo, you can select an emoji or color instead.

1. Select Emoji and choose up to six emojis. Alternatively, if you want a single color, you can select the Color option.

2. Choose between Dynamic, Grid, Large, Radial and Spiral to customize how the emoji background will appear.

3. Once you’ve selected an emoji or multiple, you can change the color of the background.

4. You also have the option to Add Widgets and remove the Flashlight and/or Camera.

How to change the clock style

The default iPhone clock gets the job done, but it doesn’t have to be boring. In iOS, you can customize the font, weight and color of the clock to match your aesthetic. This small change can have a big impact on your lock screen’s overall vibe.

1. In the lock screen editor, tap the time. You can do this before or after you’ve personalized your lock screen with photos, weather, etc.

2. Choose from a selection of font styles. Drag the slider to increase the font weight and tap the available fonts to see what they look like.

3. Use the color picker or swipe through presets to find something that fits.

How to add widgets to your lock screen

Widgets are a game changer for lock screen productivity. Whether you want to see your calendar, the weather forecast, activity rings or even battery levels at a glance, widgets can make your lock screen both pretty and practical. Widgets are compact, but you can fit up to four small ones or a mix of two medium and one small on a single lock screen, depending on the layout.

1. While editing the lock screen, tap the field below the time or select Add Widgets if the option appears (sometimes it can be tricky to see).

2. Choose from Apple’s widget library or supported third-party apps.

3. Drag and drop widgets into the space where you’d like them to live.

4. You can also tap the date above the time to change or remove the default calendar widget.

Georgie Peru for Engadget How to customize controls at the bottom of the lock screen

In iOS 18, Apple lets you personalize the quick access buttons at the bottom of the lock screen — the ones typically reserved for the flashlight and camera. You can set different controls for different lock screens and tie them to specific Focus modes as well.

1. Touch and hold the lock screen, then tap Customize.

2. Tap one of the bottom controls to select it.

3. Tap the Remove icon (-), then tap the Add (+) option to open the controls gallery.

4. You’ll see a gallery of available buttons for tools like Calculator, Translate, Shazam, Notes and more.

5. Pick the one you want, then tap Done.

How to link a Focus mode to your lock screen

One of the smartest features in iOS is the ability to link different lock screens to Focus modes. That means you can have a minimalist screen for work, a bright one for weekends and a sleep-ready design for winding down. If you don’t see Focus options when you edit your lock screen, go to Settings then Focus to set up a new one first.

1. Touch and hold the lock screen, then tap Focus.

2. Choose a Focus mode (e.g., Work, Sleep, Do Not Disturb).

3. That lock screen will now automatically appear when that Focus is active.

How to switch between lock screens

Once you’ve created a few lock screens, you can swap between them on the fly. If you’ve linked a Focus to any of them, switching lock screens will also switch the Focus automatically.

1. Touch and hold the lock screen.

2. Swipe left or right to cycle through your saved designs.

3. Tap the one you want to use.

How to delete a lock screen

If you want to delete a lock screen you no longer want or need, you can do so very easily.

1. Touch and hold the lock screen until the carousel appears.

2. Swipe to the screen you want to delete.

3. Swipe up on the lock screen.

4. Tap the Trash icon, then confirm with “Delete This Wallpaper”.

Don’t worry — this won’t delete any photos from your library. It just removes the layout.

If you’re looking for more iPhone customization tips, you might also enjoy our guide on how to make the most of the iPhone’s Action Button.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/how-to-personalize-your-iphone-lock-screen-120015173.html?src=rss

Blackmagic Design has unveiled DaVinci Resolve 20, the latest version of its editing app with free and paid versions that's a popular alternative to Adobe's Premiere Pro. The update offers over 100 new features including many powered by AI, along with improved cloud support and major quality-of-life updates to the cut, edit, color and fusion pages. 

One of the key new features is called AI IntelliScript that can automatically generate a timeline based on the original project script. "AI IntelliScript will match the transcribed audio in media clips to the script and construct a timeline of the best selected takes, with any alternative takes placed on additional tracks for editor review," Blackmagic wrote. That new feature could drastically speed workflow for editors (like myself) who often use standup or voiceover clips. 

Another key feature is the AI Set Extender that can create a scene extension to fill an entire frame based on a text prompt. If you want to reframe a shot or delete something, for instance, you can simply tell DaVinci Resolve what you want and it'll fill in the blanks. "Customers can even create new backgrounds behind foreground objects," the company wrote. 

Other new AI features include AI Animated Subtitles, AI Mulltcam SmartSwitch (which can assemble a timeline based on who is speaking) and AI Audio Assistant. The latter can create a "professional audio mix" with a single click, according to Blackmagic Design. Finally, the AI Detect Music Beats feature does just that, analyzing music and automatically placing beat markers in the timeline.

Along with the AI stuff, DaVinci Resolve has a number of quality-of-life improvements in the cut, edit, color and fusion pages. Davinci Resolve Studio 20 (the paid version) now supports Apple Immersive Video on Apple Vision Pro, allowing creators to edit, color grade, mix audio and deliver Apple Immersive video capture on the company's recently launched URSA Cine Immersive camera. 

Blackmagic Design

Other updates include improved Blackmagic Cloud support with improved collaboration tools, easier editing for vertical video, new voiceover palettes, a dedicated keyframe editor in cut and edit, a new Text+ tool, direct voiceover recording and more. On the color page, there's a new chroma warp function that lets you adjust color and saturation with a single motion. And the Fairlight audio page has a new feature that lets adjust a target clip's audio to match a reference clip, dynamic EQ to match tonality throughout a clip and Level Matcher to ensure that levels remain consistent in a given timeline. 

A full list of features can be found on Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve 20 product page. It's now available to download in a public beta, and as usual, DaVinci Resolve 20 is free to download while DaVinci Resolve 20 Studio costs $295 with no subscription required. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/davinci-resolve-20s-latest-ai-feature-can-create-an-entire-timeline-based-on-a-script-120009351.html?src=rss

I’m a longtime lover of pen and paper, so E Ink tablets have been intriguing to me ever since they started becoming more widely available. After having hundreds of half-filled notebooks over the years, I, at some point, turned to digital tools instead because it was just easier to store everything on my phone or laptop so I always had my most important information at my fingertips.

E Ink tablets seem to provide the best of both worlds: the tactile satisfaction of regular notebooks with many of the conveniences found in digital tools, plus easy-on-the-eyes E Ink screens. These devices have come a long way in recent years — now you can find them in multiple sizes, some have color E Ink screens and others double as full-blow ereaders with access to ebook stores and your local library’s offerings. I’ve tested out close to a dozen E Ink tablets over the past year or two to see how well they work, how convenient they really are and which are the best tablets using E Ink screens available today.

Table of contents

• Best E Ink tablets for 2025

• Are E Ink tablets worth it?

• What to look for in an E Ink tablet

• Other E Ink tablets we've tested

Best E Ink tablets for 2025

Are E Ink tablets worth it?

An E Ink tablet will be a worthwhile purchase to a very select group of people. If you prefer the look and feel of an e paper display to LCD panels found on traditional tablets, it makes a lot of sense. They’re also good options for those who want a more paper-like writing experience (although you can get that kind of functionality on a regular tablet with the right screen protector) or a more distraction-free device overall.

The final note is key here. Most E Ink tablets don’t run on the same operating systems as regular tablets, so you’re automatically going to be limited in what you can do. And even with those that do allow you to download traditional apps like Chrome, Instagram and Facebook, E Ink tablets are not designed to give you the best casual-browsing experience. This is mostly due to the nature of E Ink displays, which have noticeable refreshes, a lack of color and lower quality than the panels you’ll find on even the cheapest iPad.

Arguably the biggest reason why you wouldn’t want to go with an iPad (all models of which support stylus input, a plethora of reading apps, etc) is because it’s much easier to get distracted by email, social media and other Internet-related temptations. An e-reader is also worth considering if this is the case for you, but just know that most standard e-readers do not accept stylus input. If you like to make notes in the margins of books, underline and mark up PDFs and the like, an e-reader won’t cut it.

What to look for in an E Ink tablet Latency

I discovered four main things that can really make or break your experience with an E Ink tablet during my testing; first is the writing experience. How good it is will depend a lot on the display’s refresh rate (does it refresh after every time you put pen to “paper,” so to speak?) and the stylus’ latency. Most had little to no latency, but there were some that were worse than others. Finally, you should double check before buying that your preferred E Ink tablet comes with a stylus.

Reading

The second thing to consider is the reading experience. How much will you be reading books, documents and other things on this tablet? While you can find E Ink tablets in all different sizes, most of them tend to be larger than your standard e-reader because it makes writing much easier. Having a larger display isn’t a bad thing, but it might make holding it for long periods slightly more uncomfortable. (Most e-readers are roughly the size of a paperback book, giving you a similar feeling to analog reading).

The supported file types will also make a big difference. It’s hard to make a blanket statement here because this varies so much among E Ink tablets. The TL;DR is that you’ll have a much better reading experience if you go with one made by a company that already has a history in e-book sales (i.e. Amazon or Kobo). All of the titles you bought via the Kindle or Kobo store should automatically be available to you on your Kindle or Kobo E Ink tablet. And with Kindle titles, specifically, since they are protected by DRM, it’s not necessarily the best idea to try to bring those titles over to a third-party device. Unless the tablet supports reading apps like Amazon’s Kindle or the Kobo app, you’ll be limited to supported file types, like ePUB, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, PNG and others.

Search functionality

Third, most E Ink tablets have some search features, but they can vary widely between models. You’ll want to consider how important it is to you to be able to search through all your handwritten notes and markups. I noticed that Amazon’s and Kobo’s E Ink tablets made it easy to refer back to notes made in books and files because they automatically save on which pages you took notes, made highlights and more. Searching is less standardized on E Ink tablets that have different supported file types, but their features can be quite powerful in their own right. For example, a few devices I tested supported text search in handwritten notes along with handwriting recognition, the latter of which allows you to translate your scribbles into typed text.

Sharing and connectivity

The final factor to consider is sharing and connectivity. Yes, we established that E Ink tablets can be great distraction-free devices, but most manufacturers understand that your notes and doodles aren’t created in a vacuum. You’ll likely want to access them elsewhere, and that requires some form of connectivity. All of the E Ink tablets I tried were Wi-Fi devices, and some supported cloud syncing, companion mobile apps and the ability to export notes via email so you can access them elsewhere. None of them, however, integrate directly with a digital note taking system like Evernote or OneNote, so these devices will always be somewhat supplementary if you use apps like that, too. Ultimately, you should think about what you will want to do with the documents you’ll interact with on your E Ink tablet after the tablet portion is done.

Other E Ink tablets we've tested Lenovo Smart Paper

Lenovo made a solid E Ink tablet in the Smart Paper, but it's too pricey and too married to the company's companion cloud service to warrant a spot on our top picks list. The hardware is great, but the software isn't as flexible as those of competitors like the reMarkable 2. It has good Google Drive integration, but you must pair it with Lenovo's cloud service to really get the most use out of it — and in the UK, the service costs £9 per month for three months, which is quite expensive.

Onyx Boox Tab Ultra

The Boox Tab Ultra has a lot of the same features we like in the Note Air 2 Plus, but it’s designed to be a true, all-purpose tablet with an E Ink screen. Running Android 11 and compatible with a magnetic keyboard case, you can use it like a standard 2-in-1 laptop, albeit a low-powered one. You can browse the web, check email and even watch YouTube videos on this thing — but that doesn’t mean you should. A standard 2-in-1 laptop with a more responsive screen and better overall performance would be a better fit for most people who even have the slightest desire to have an all-in-one device. Like the rest of Onyx’s devices, the Tab Ultra is specifically for those who put reading and eye comfort above all else.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/best-e-ink-tablet-130037939.html?src=rss

If you were wondering whether it’d be possible to ferment foods in space, the answer is apparently yes. In a study published in the journal iScience, researchers from the US and Denmark say they were able to make decent-tasting miso on the International Space Station — but the flavor and smell was distinct from that of miso made on Earth. While it still scored well in the taste tests, with similar ratings to Earth miso in qualities like umami and saltiness, the ISS miso was found to taste nuttier and more roasted than the usual stuff.

The team suggests the findings reflect a sort of “space terroir,” playing off the term often used in relation to wine grapes to describe unique, location-specific flavor characteristics. For the study, the researchers sent a package containing the miso paste ingredients (cooked soybeans, rice koji and salt) to the ISS in March 2020, and let it ferment for 30 days. They also started miso batches back at home in Cambridge, MA and Copenhagen, Denmark, and monitored the environmental conditions of each setup. After a month, the space miso was sent back and analyzed in comparison to the Earth batches.

“There are some features of the space environment in low earth orbit — in particular microgravity and increased radiation — that could have impacts on how microbes grow and metabolize and thus how fermentation works,” co-lead author Joshua D. Evans of Technical University of Denmark said in a press release. “We wanted to explore the effects of these conditions.”

Not only were there differences in flavor, including the notable roasted nuttiness of the space miso, but also in the microbial composition of the misos. The team concluded that “overall, the space miso is a miso,” but says the findings “suggest a specific fermentation environment in space.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/researchers-who-made-miso-in-space-say-it-tastes-good-but-different-215410333.html?src=rss

A Minecraft Movie has reportedly surpassed the record previously set by 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie for the biggest ever domestic box office opening of a video game adaptation. The new movie, which was released in theaters on Friday, raked in $157 million in the US in its opening weekend, according to The Hollywood Reporter. A Minecraft Movie is doing well internationally, too; THR reports that it’s earned $301M altogether in its global debut. The Super Mario Bros. Movie pulled in $146 million in its domestic opening and $377 million globally.

A Minecraft Movie stars Jack Black, Sebastian Hansen, Emma Myers, Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks and Jennifer Coolidge. And while the trailers left us with pretty low expectations in the leadup to its release, Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar found that it’s actually a pretty good kids’ movie that “delivers a decent message about championing creativity in a world that wants to beat down free-thinking non-conformists.” You can read the full review here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/a-minecraft-movie-just-set-a-new-record-with-the-biggest-opening-ever-for-a-video-game-adaptation-in-the-us-192934482.html?src=rss

Lexar this week announced what it says is the world’s first 1TB microSD Express card in time for the arrival of the Nintendo Switch 2. Nintendo has said that the Switch 2 will only support microSD Express cards, not the regular microSD you may already have been using in your old Switch. There are three storage capacity options to choose from with Lexar’s new Play Pro microSDXC Express Card: 1TB ($199.99), 512GB ($99.99) and 256GB ($49.99). Buyers have already snatched them up fast, though, so you’ll have to wait until they’re back in stock if you want to grab one.

According to Lexar, the Play Pro microSDXC Express Card offers read speeds of up to 900MB/s and write speeds up to 600MB/s. GameStop also introduced a 1TB microSD Express card alongside a 512GB and a 256GB option, all of which are compatible with Nintendo Switch 2, but those won’t ship until June when the new console arrives.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/lexar-made-a-1tb-microsd-express-card-that-works-with-nintendo-switch-2-175335976.html?src=rss

Meta has released the first two models from its multimodal Llama 4 suite: Llama 4 Scout and Llama 4 Maverick. Maverick is “the workhorse” of the two and excels at image and text understanding for “general assistant and chat use cases,” the company said in a blog post, while the smaller model Scout could tackle things like “multi-document summarization, parsing extensive user activity for personalized tasks, and reasoning over vast codebases.” The company also introduced Llama 4 Behemoth, an upcoming model it says is “among the world’s smartest LLMs” — and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said we’ll be hearing about a fourth model, Llama 4 Reasoning, “in the next month.” 

Both Maverick and Scout are available to download now from the Llama website and Hugging Face, and they’ve been added to Meta AI, including for WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram DMs. 

Meta

Scout has 17 billion active parameters with 16 experts, Meta says. According to Zuckerberg, “It’s extremely fast, natively multimodal, and has an industry leading, nearly infinite 10 million token context length, and it is designed to run on a single GPU.” Maverick on the other hand has 17 billion active parameters with 128 experts. The company says it beats competitors like GPT-4o and Gemini 2.0 on coding, reasoning, multilingual, long-context and image benchmarks, and stacks up against DeepSeek v3.1 on reasoning and coding.

Zuckerberg is already calling the upcoming Behemoth model, which is still training, “the highest performing base model in the world,” with 288 billion active parameters, according to the company. It may not be here yet, but it’s likely we’ll be hearing a lot more about that and the Reasoning model soon; Meta’s big AI developer conference, LlamaCon, is just a few weeks away.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/meta-introduces-llama-4-with-two-new-models-available-now-and-two-more-on-the-way-214524295.html?src=rss

Amazon's new feature could make it easier to get into the latest release in a series, especially if it's been some time since you've read the previous books. The new Recaps feature is part of the latest software update for the Kindle, and the company compares it to "Previously on..." segments you can watch for TV shows. Amazon announced Recaps in a blog post, where it said that you can get access to it once you receive the software update over the air or after you download and install it from Amazon's website. Amazon didn't talk about the technology behind the feature in its post, but a spokesperson has confirmed to TechCrunch that the recaps will be AI generated. 

Shortly after the feature rolled out, users talked about it on social media, wondering if Amazon is using generative AI to write series summaries. They expressed concerns about the use of generative AI, especially about the possibility of the technology hallucinating plot elements that aren't actually in the books. "We use technology, including GenAI and Amazon moderators, to create short recaps of books that accurately reflect book content," Amazon spokesperson Ale Iraheta told the publication. Iraheta assured TechCrunch that Amazon's recaps are accurate, but of course, use it at your own risk. 

At the moment, the Recaps feature is available for best-selling English-language book series on all Kindle devices in the US. To know if your favorite series has one, look for the "View Recaps" button within the series page in your Kindle library. It will soon be available for the Kindle app on iOS, as well. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amazon-will-use-ai-to-generate-recaps-for-book-series-on-the-kindle-170018503.html?src=rss

UK-based Jaguar Land Rover says it’s pausing shipments to the US after President Donald Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on passenger vehicles and other auto imports. The pause will be in effect this month, the Associated Press reports. While the full impact of the tariffs remains to be seen, analysts have said the move could ultimately drive up the cost of new and even used cars.

“The USA is an important market for JLR’s luxury brands,” Jaguar Land Rover said in a statement to AP. “As we work to address the new trading terms with our business partners, we are taking some short-term actions including a shipment pause in April, as we develop our mid- to longer-term plans.”

Trump’s tariffs go well beyond the auto industry, and we’re only seeing the beginning of how the US’ trading partners will respond. The president announced a 10 percent baseline tariff on “all countries” this week, and some will face even higher “reciprocal” tariffs. Among the immediate effects, Nintendo has delayed pre-orders of the new Switch 2 in the US.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/jaguar-land-rover-pauses-us-shipments-while-it-figures-out-a-plan-for-trumps-tariffs-172512506.html?src=rss

Amazon has started testing another AI-powered feature called "Buy for Me," which allows the e-commerce company to make purchases for you from other websites. Specifically, from the actual website of a brand you're looking looking up. The experience is built into the Amazon app. When you search for an item from a particular brand, you may see a section of results labeled "Shop brand sites directly" separate from the results you'll get from Amazon and its third-party sellers. 

If you click on the "Buy for Me" button underneath an item in the separate results section, you'll be taken to a product detail page right inside the Amazon app. The company says the page will provide relevant product information similar to the product details in Amazon's own listings. Amazon will purchase the item for you from the brand's website if you decide to go through with the transaction. It uses agentic AI, a type of AI that doesn't need human intervention, to provide your name, address and payment details for the checkout process. Your details are encrypted, Amazon says, and it will not be able to see your previous and future orders from brands' websites. You'll receive a confirmation email from the brand store itself for your purchase, but you can track your order within the Amazon app through the new Buy for Me Orders tab in the Your Orders page. 

The company told us that it's not getting a commission from your purchases made through the experimental feature, but it didn't say if it was going to get a cut from sales in the future. For now, the feature is still in beta and will only be available to a subset of customers on the US on its iOS and Amazon apps. The test will also only feature a limited number of brand stores and products for now. Just a few days ago, Amazon also released an AI-powered feature called "Interests," which can process prompts in every day language related to your, well, interests. You can, for instance, type in "Brewing tools and gadgets for coffee lovers" to get relevant notifications for Amazon's deals and offerings. 

Amazon

Update, April 05, 2025, 09:25 AM ET: Amazon told us it's not getting a commission from this experimental feature. This story has been updated to reflect that.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amazons-buy-for-me-ai-will-purchase-stuff-from-third-party-websites-123036361.html?src=rss

Jamie Siminoff, who founded Ring and started the company in his garage, is back at Amazon after leaving the company as its CEO in 2023. Siminoff joined Amazon when the e-commerce website acquired Ring in 2018, but he left in 2023 and founded another startup that he sold to lock maker Latch Inc. When he left Amazon two years ago, he said that invention was his true passion. Now, he's taking on the role as the vice president in charge of not just Ring, but also Amazon's smart home camera unit Blink, the company's in-garage delivery operations called Key and the Amazon Sidewalk low-bandwith, long-range shared network. 

Siminoff is replacing Elizabeth Hamren, who took over his role two years ago. Hamren used to be the COO of Discord and was also an executive at Microsoft and at Meta. According to Bloomberg, she's still looking for new opportunities from inside and outside the company. 

In a post welcoming him back posted on the Amazon website, Siminoff briefly and broadly talked about his plans for the divisions he's heading. He plans to focus on security, on making people feel their "homes are safe, even when they’re thousands of miles away." Siminoff also wants to make sure Amazon's experiences related to home security "work seamlessly across different types of devices." In addition, he talked about how he's going to explore the use of artificial intelligence in Amazon's products and services in the future. "The AI transformation happening right now is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and I think we’re super well positioned with helpful and practical AI features like Smart Video Search," he said. "It's just the start here — we're just scratching the surface of what we can do with AI — and I look forward to digging into this with the team even more."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/ring-founder-jamie-siminoff-is-back-at-amazon-to-run-its-video-doorbell-unit-130009731.html?src=rss

The official launch of Apple’s iOS 18 brought with it some fresh ways to customize your iPhone’s home screen. Rather than leaving unwanted apps hanging around like a bad smell in places you don’t want them, users can now take full control of app placement and make their home screen their own. Whether you're looking to add useful widgets, reorganize your apps or get rid of the ones you never use, customizing your iPhone home screen can help your device feel a little more unique. Here’s a simple step-by-step guide to everything you can do to make your iOS 18 home screen look better and work the way you want.

How to add, edit and remove widgets

Widgets provide a convenient at-a-glance view of an app’s data or functionality, giving you quick access to information and reducing the need to open the app itself. A well-placed widget allows you to check the weather, view your calendar or access music controls, all without opening an app, giving your thumb a well-earned rest. Everybody loves a good shortcut, and with iOS 18, you can add, edit, or remove widgets easily, letting you jump straight to the information that matters.

To add a widget:

1. Touch and hold an empty area on your home screen until the app icons start to jiggle.

2. Tap the Edit button in the top-left corner and select Add Widget.

3. Scroll or search for the widget you want, then tap it.

4. Swipe left or right to choose a size (some offer different layouts).

5. Tap Add Widget to place it on your screen.

6. Drag it to your preferred spot, then tap Done (top right).

To edit a widget:

1. Press and hold the widget you want to change.

2. Tap Edit Widget (if available). If Edit Widget isn’t available, you can cycle through the icons for different placement and layout options.

3. Adjust settings like what calendar it shows, which location for the weather, etc. These options will be unique to each app’s widget.

To remove a widget:

1. Press and hold the widget.

2. Tap Remove Widget, then confirm.

Rob Webb for Engadget How to move apps and widgets on the home screen

Shuffling your home screen apps and widgets is also a cinch thanks to iOS 18’s customization overhaul. It’s a simple but useful way to personalize your iPhone’s home screen and declutter your wallpaper, so your loved ones' faces don’t become buried underneath a wall of app icons.

1. Tap and hold on any app to reveal a menu.

2. Select Edit Home Screen, where you can move the apps across pages by dragging them to the edge of the screen.

3. Tap Done when you're finished.

You can also stack one app on top of another to automatically create a folder (more on that below).

How to customize apps and widgets on the home screen

Moving your most-used apps into prime position is all well and good, but if you’re going for a particular aesthetic with your home screen, the default appearance of an app icon can sometimes spoil the overall look. Luckily, in iOS 18, you can exert more control over how your apps look, including the option to change app icon colors and how widgets are displayed.

To customize your app icon colors:

1. Press and hold on the home screen and tap Edit at the top.

2. Choose Customize to change background colors (like dark, light or a custom color) or apply a different layout.

However, bear in mind that not all app icons can change color. If these steps don’t work for you, you may be left with the odd rogue app icon, sticking out like a sore thumb. In which case, you can hide the app icon from view, while still being able to access it easily from the app library.

How to lock or hide an app

Security is a top priority, particularly when it comes to your smartphone. You might have certain apps you want to keep private and for your eyes only. If so, you’ll be happy to know that there are two ways in which you can prevent unwanted eyes on your apps. You can hide or lock an app behind a passcode or Face ID; this prevents unauthorized access and keeps your apps in a Hidden folder. Similarly, you can remove apps entirely from the home screen, still allowing you (and others if they have access) to view them in your App Library.

To lock an app:

1. Long-press the icon of the app you want to lock on the home screen.

2. Select Require Face ID (or Touch ID or Passcode).

3. Confirm your selection by pressing Require Face ID (or Touch ID or Passcode).

To hide an app:

1. Long-press the icon of the app you want to lock on the home screen.

2. Select Require Face ID (or Touch ID or Passcode).

3. Confirm your selection by pressing Require Face ID (or Touch ID or Passcode)

4. Tap Hide and Require Face ID (or Touch ID or Passcode), then tap Hide App.

How to organize your apps in folders

Folders are a great way to declutter your home screen and keep similar apps grouped together. If you’re the type of person who likes to keep things tidy and organized, storing your apps in folders is a good way to do it.

To create a folder:

1. Drag one app icon over another, and iOS 18 will automatically create a folder with both.

2. Tap the name to rename the folder (e.g., “Social” or “Work”).

3. Drag in additional apps if you want.

To remove a folder:

1. Move all the apps out of the folder, and it will disappear once it’s empty.

How to remove or delete apps

The struggle is real when it comes to app bloat, and sometimes a bit of a spring clean is needed. If your home screen needs a bit of freshening up, you can kick a seldom-used app to the curb, or at least kick it off your home screen.

To remove an app from the home screen (without deleting it):

1. Tap and hold the app icon.

2. Tap Remove App.

3. Select Remove from Home Screen.

4. When you want to use that app, navigate to the App Library (swipe left past your last home page) or swipe down from the top of your home screen to search for it.

To delete an app completely:

1. Tap and hold the app icon.

2. Tap Remove App.

3. Select Delete App, then confirm.

To re-download a deleted app:

1. Open the App Store, search for the app and tap the download icon.

Rob Webb for Engadget A few more tips to personalize your home screen space

Widgets Smart Stacks: Using this feature, you can combine multiple widgets into a stack you can swipe through. To do this, just drag one widget on top of another of the same size.

App Library shortcuts: If you want a cleaner home screen, you can remove most apps and rely on the App Library (swipe all the way left) or the search tool to launch what you need.

Focus mode customization: Each Focus mode can have its own custom home screen. This is a useful tool for separating your work life from your personal life.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/how-to-customize-your-iphones-home-screen-in-ios-18-120100872.html?src=rss

The economy added 228,000 jobs in March — generally more than economists expected. The labor force participation rate was up a tad, and the unemployment rate rose just a touch. All signs of a fairly resilient labor market. 

Of course, there’s a “but”: That data was collected in mid-March and we are now firmly in April, with new, broad tariffs expected to take effect over the course of the next week. And all that changing trade policy could affect employment moving forward.

That saying, “past performance is no guarantee of future results,” could apply to this jobs report. 

“Things were good in mid-March, but what do they look like in mid September?” said Guy Berger, director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute.

Tariffs on imports will mean higher prices for, let’s say, imported hoodies and headphones and whiskey.

And if demand for all that falls? “Less stuff is going to be going through that chain to the end consumer,” Berger said.

Which means we’re likely going to need fewer people to transport, store and sell that stuff. 

“Less of it’s gonna go into retailers hands. You probably need less salespeople,” he said.

Manufacturing jobs here could be hit too, particularly in the short-term.

UBS Chief U.S. Economist Jonathan Pingle said, take automakers, who’ll be paying more for imported parts.

“If the price goes up a lot, because the production costs have gone up a lot, the demand for those cars is probably going to fall,” he said. “And that probably means less workers to produce those cars.”

Pingle said if tariffs stay in place, manufacturing could move back to the U.S. But that could take in some cases, a year, in others, years, plural.

Also, not every manufacturing job abroad equals a new job for a person here. Instead, it’ll equal a job for a robot.

“You could imagine 10 people overseas becomes three U.S. workers plus …  the other seven people’s jobs being done by technology paired with the U.S. worker,” Pingle said.

Jobs in some industries will be less affected. Like services that are created and used here, said Kory Kantenga, head of Economics, Americas, at Linkedin.

One that’s especially needed by an aging population is health care. 

“We’re going to need workers to take care of our elderly, to take care of us,” he said.

But overall, UBS’s Jonathan Pingle said these tariffs are gonna hurt economic growth, hurt our national wealth and ultimately hurt demand for workers.

This trade war’s going to hit everybody’s wallet. The Budget Lab at Yale University estimated fresh produce, for instance, will go up by 4% and clothing prices will rise 17%. That kind of inflation hits people with the lowest incomes hardest.

The Yale Budget Lab also estimated that Trump’s tariffs alone will slash disposable income in the poorest households by at least $1,700 a year. Simply put, the lowest-income households spend more money on necessities.

Steve Blitz, chief U.S. economist at GlobalData TS.Lombard, said the category that’ll hit them hardest is apparel.

“That’s really where they’re going to feel it the most, because they buy clothes like everybody else,” he said.

Blitz said yes, you can hold on to clothes longer and mend tears, but everybody needs new underwear and shirts sometimes.

Sheng Lu is a professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware.

“The current reciprocal tariff structure especially leads to a price hike for products targeting the value market,” he said. That means the cheapest clothes, which come from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Sri Lanka — all countries that face some of the highest tariffs. Lu said that puts low-income buyers in a tough position.

“They already have more limited choices compared to more affluent consumers,” he said.

If you’re already buying your underwear from the most affordable brands, there’s nothing cheaper to switch to. You just have to pay the higher price.

That’s a problem people with low incomes face at the grocery store too, said Tim Richards, an agribusiness professor at Arizona State University.

“The top half of income earners, they spend about 10% of their income on food,” he said. “But if you look at the lowest 20% of income earners, they spend 30% of their income on food.”

Richards said those higher-income shoppers can also “trade down,” from, say, the organic vegetables to the cheaper ones.

“It’s one of the real harmful things about tariffs is that the people that are less able to substitute away end up paying the bigger hit,” he said.

And, Richards said, that has health consequences. Because healthier food tends to be more expensive, and if you can’t afford the cheapest vegetables, then you don’t buy any.

Mewgenics, the cat-breeding RPG that was originally announced as a follow-up to Super Meat Boy, is coming out in 2025, based on a new trailer shared by IGN and the game's updated Steam page.

A blend of a turned-based RPG and twisted cat simulator, Mewgenics started as the next project from Team Meat, the development duo made up of Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes. Team Meat teased Mewgenics throughout 2013, but ultimately put the game on hold in 2014 to focus on finishing Super Meat Boy Forever, a mobile sequel to Super Meat Boy.

When McMillen ultimately left Team Meat in 2018 to focus on supporting The Binding of Isaac, Mewgenics came with him, and the game has been slowly making its way to release since then. If the trailer is any indication, repeatable, turn-based battles have become a big part of Mewgenics, but McMillen's trademark gross-out animation style remains intact (as does all of the cat furniture).

If you're looking for more information about how the game has changed since it was announced over a decade ago, McMillen and co-developer Tyler Glaiel have kept up a relatively regular cadence of blog posts on Steam covering different aspects of the development process. We should also see a lot more of the game soon: In their latest update, Mewgenics' developers shared that IGN is publishing hands-on coverage of the game in May.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/the-creator-of-binding-of-isaac-will-release-a-new-game-mewgenics-this-year-211049653.html?src=rss

At Christina Kent Early Childhood Center in downtown Albuquerque, the kids guide the curriculum. Right now, the two- and three-year-olds in the bunny classroom are guiding it in a Jurassic Park kind of direction. 

“Do you know the names of any of these dinosaurs?” asked teacher Danielle Reinertsen as the “bunnies” dug through a basket of toy triceratops and brachiosaurus and made their best dino sounds. 

“It seems they’re most interested in figuring out, why did the dinos die? And, what do dinos eat?” Reiertsen said. 

Some possibilities jotted down on the classroom white board include salad, people and croissants from the coffee shop down the street. 

“We’ll see if there’s a question they want to dig deeper into and if they want to move on to something else, we’ll probably move on to something else,” Reinertsen said. 

Something else like making family portraits or watching real caterpillars transform into painted lady butterflies. 

Reinertsen and two other teachers lead this classroom of 18 toddlers. That’s a pretty low grownup to kid ratio, and one reason why Christina Kent earns a five-star quality rating from the state of New Mexico. High payroll costs compared to tuition are also what make running the center so expensive. 

“Our margins are fairly narrow,” said executive director Sondra Carpenter. “I can tell you that consistently, for a number of years in a row, this center was running in the red.” 

Carpenter said the center was walking a sort of tight rope. It was barely charging enough to keep the lights on. Still, lots of families struggled to make tuition payments. That included families whose incomes far exceeded the cutoff for childcare assistance through the state. Carpenter said center leadership found themselves playing the uncomfortable role of bill collectors. 

“Do we send them to collections? Do we take it as a loss for the year?” Carpenter said. “Then the relationship gets a little strained.” 

But in 2021, New Mexico made some big investments that changed that dynamic. It dramatically expanded eligibility for childcare assistance from 200 to 400% of the federal poverty line. It also boosted the reimbursement rates centers receive for accepting childcare vouchers to a level that the state says actually covers the cost of providing high quality care. 

“It’s allowed child care programs to really focus where we want to focus, which is on the kids,” Carpenter said. 

This started as an experiment paid for using federal COVID-19 pandemic relief funds. In 2022, New Mexicans voted to make the expansion permanent using money from two state investment funds fed mostly by the state’s surplus oil and gas revenue. 

“You can make choices about what’s important, and New Mexico has really decided to go big on early childhood,” said Hailey Heinz, deputy director of the University of New Mexico’s Cradle to Career Policy Institute. 

Heinz said a New Mexican family of four making up to $124,000 a year can now send their kids to day care for free. That’s twice the state’s median income. 

“New Mexico is a pretty low income place, so when you move something up to 400% of federal poverty you get something that starts to almost look and feel like a universal system,” Heinz said. 

Child care in the United States is a classic example of a failing market where the forces of supply and demand don’t produce good outcomes for businesses, workers or consumers. Day care prices are about as high as families can bear. That constraint means many centers are barely scraping by and can’t offer higher teacher salaries, enough slots to meet demand or the quality of care that we know is good for kids’ development. 

Since the pandemic, a couple of state governments have been trying to bring things into balance by helping more households afford care. California, Colorado and Alabama have expanded their free childcare options for three- and four-year-olds. But New Mexico is the only state to offer full tuition waivers to broad swaths of its middle class from birth to age five. 

“The play New Mexico is making is to put a lot of public money into this broken market,” said Heinz. “Could we transform the system that way? Could we make it higher quality? Could we incentivize providers to open new rooms because they know they’re going to have this reliable, higher revenue source?” 

If more families can afford care and providers’ margins are a bit wider, maybe the system could work better for everybody. Easy, right?  

“Right,” said Jessica Brown, an economist studying childcare markets at the University of South Carolina. “If every state could have oil money, maybe we could solve the child care crisis.” 

In 2022, New Mexico was in the unique position of having both the surplus revenue and the political will to make an all-in investment in early childhood education. Brown said the investment funds that pay for the expanded subsidy are innovative but not necessarily replicable in states with tighter budgets. Still, she said other states should be taking notes. 

“Child care serves this dual purpose in facilitating labor force participation of parents, but also being really important for child development,” Brown said, so getting more kids into high quality care should pay short and long term economic dividends. 

“We have a lot of research showing that if early care environments are good we see better outcomes later in life,” Brown said. “We see higher educational attainment, we see higher wages, we see better health and lower crime rates.” 

For now, researchers at the University of New Mexico are finding that the expanded subsidy is helping shift New Mexico’s child care sector toward more center-based, licensed care at higher quality. Between 2019 and 2023, the number of licensed child care slots in the state increased by 7% and the number of centers earning a “five-star” rating grew by 16%. 

In some cases, the stability provided by the expanded subsidy is allowing centers to expand. 

Across the street from Christina Kent Early Childhood Center is a building that the center just purchased and that will soon house five new toddler, pre-K and badly-needed infant classrooms. Director Sondra Carpenter said she knows the center can fill those classrooms now that more families can afford care and the center’s profit margins are a bit wider. 

“Has that set the stage and the foundation for us to be able to say, ‘Yes, let’s take on a loan?’ It has,” Carpenter said. “I don’t think the school ten years ago was in a financial position to make that kind of decision.”