The keyword for the iPhone 16e seems to be "compromise." In this episode, Devindra chats with Cherlynn about her iPhone 16e review and try to figure out who this phone is actually for. Also, they dive into Amazon's Alexa event, where we finally learned more about the company's AI-powered voice assistant. Alexa seems useful, but can we trust it? Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News! Framework unveils a cheap 2-in-1 laptop and a…modular desktop? Devindra: This week, it's the iPhone 16e, which Cherlynn has reviewed. We're going to get her full thoughts on that thing. And also, Amazon held an AI event this week. We expected a lot of devices, but they spent 75 minutes talking about Alexa plus, which is the AI powered Alexa. Cherlynn: we expected a lot of devices. Cherlynn: one, at least one it's been a while. Devindra: Mr. Panos Panay was there, the father of the service and no devices, just him talking about AI. Cherlynn: Oh, and stay tuned at the end of this episode. Uh, I, we included an interview that I did with, um, the vice president of Alexa to talk more about the new Alexa plus. Devindra: Anyway, folks, if you're enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or your podcaster of choice, leave us a review on iTunes and drop us an email at podcast@engadget.com. You can also join us on our live [00:01:00] stream on Thursday mornings, typically around 11 a. m. Um, you'll see our faces. Sometimes we'll do Q& A and show off devices as well. This week, uh, Sherilyn has the iPhone 16e, which is the least, um, impressive thing to show off. It's just like, Hey, you have an iPhone from 10 years ago, five, a while ago, Devindra: last, was there a single camera back iPhone? Cherlynn: Oh God, before that was 11. So, you know, it's like a flashback. So let's talk about this thing, Sherlynn. And I checked out your review. First of all, you gave it a really, um, I think serviceable score. Your title is what's your acceptable compromise. And really when we were talking about it last week, it really was like compromise seemed like the key word. The thing we kept coming back to was like just one camera, no mag safe, no fast wireless charging. What are your overall thoughts on this thing? Cherlynn: I mean, so that headline is like all thanks to our EIC, Aaron [00:02:00]Souppouris, because I was like, where, where do I go from here? How do I, so, so he's right. It is like, instead of what's in your wallet, it's like, what are you willing to take out your wallet? I'll tell you the story. So yesterday I was at the Amazon devices and services event where there were no devices and A bunch of other reporters had gathered and we were all like, you know, the, like, review's going up soon, right?

Devindra: We are here what is this, the beginning of night one of CES officially? Devindra: guess we have already suffered through basically day minus one. Devindra: One thing I want our listeners to understand is that we have already seen a lot of things we kind of know where the CES is headed. And, I think this is a cursed show Cherlynn. How do you feel about that? Yeah, I think I mean, Devindra, I'll let you speak to your situation, but we've had team members who have fallen deathly ill. We have also, like, people who have completely had to miss their flights, international flights. It's been quite Engadget team, but we have a really, really good team of people. Everyone's got great attitudes and, like, our spirits are high. You want to just get the stuff going.

It's been a Mac-heavy week! The Mac mini, in particular, looks like it'll be a huge hit for anyone who needs a simple desktop system. Also, we dive into why Apple is pushing for every Mac to get 16GB of RAM at a minimum. That will benefit all users, even if they don't care about Apple Intelligence. Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News! Regulators force Lyft to tell U.S. drivers accurate numbers of how much money they'll make – 45:30 This week, I'm joined by our podcast producer, Ben Ellman. Kind of a light ship this week because a lot of people are out. Everyone's on taking some break and a lot of people are just busy at Engadget. So it's just going to be us. But we've got a lot of news to dive into all of Apple's new Macs with M4 chips, the M4 Pro and M4 Max as well, that they all just announced this week. There's a lot of new stuff and I'm excited to talk about it as always, folks. So if you're enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or your podcatcher of choice. Leave us a review on iTunes. And also, yeah, you can join us Thursday mornings, typically around 1045 AM Eastern on our YouTube channel for our live stream so we can do some Q& A. In fact, we'll be including some of those questions and our answers later in this episode as well. Ben, you are somebody who I know is fully in the Mac ecosystem, and I also know you're very conscientious. Well, unfortunately, or for what you do, you're kind of there, but you're also very conscientious about how you upgrade, right? How did you feel about all these new Macs? Because we have the M4 iMac, we have an adorable new Mac mini, which is tiny, absolutely tiny, and M4 chips on the MacBook Pros. Is anything particularly compelling to you? Ben: So as I was reading up on the Mac, All of the stuff they released this week. That chip is four years old now. Ben: cut me like a knife. But that is M1 Classic, not M1 Pro. My research says that the M1 Pro is only two times slower than this new M4 Pro. Please fact check me on this. Send us an email at podcast adding gadget. If I didn't get that right. Devindra: I mean, you, you bring up a good point though, Ben, be sure to be very clear about what Apple is comparing its devices to, right? Because they often go back to base M1, which. Was released at the end of 2020 2020. It took a full year before we got the M4 Pro and M4 Max chips, right. Before they really expanded the line. Ben: you mean M1 Pro and M1 Max. So remember that there was that time difference when they, they just dropped the M1 on us and that was on the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13 inch, which was a fricking waste of time and the Mac mini, I believe back then, right.

It's a slower October than usual in the tech industry, thanks mostly to Google and Microsoft having held their typical fall hardware announcements earlier this year. Still, we've seen a fair number of companies reveal new devices in the last two weeks, while Amazon's October Prime Day raged on. Whether you were busy shopping or watching Elon Musk talk up robotaxis and cybervans, the Engadget team continued to review recently (and not-so-recently) launched products. As usual, this bi-weekly roundup is here to help you catch up, though because I missed last week's edition (as I was out on time off), the cadence is just a bit off. From Meta's Quest 3S VR headset and the DJI Air 3S drone, to Sony's midrange suite of audio gear, these weeks have coincidentally been about the less premium, more affordable "un-flagships," if you will. And it turns out you don't have to throw chunks of your retirement savings at companies to get solid devices that are well worth the money.

What's that feature called on pixel phones? I forget what Android in general about Android specifics. But yes, there there was like a magic erase option there, too Yeah, I was going to say magic eraser, but that is a that's a clean thing it's something like that too, but It works really well like in terms of highlighting a specific object and removing it there are instances where it's too big and it can't like extrapolate like what should be a background so it looks really messy but sometimes like it just like smooths out a bright ugly object in the background was just like general unfocused stuff and that actually may be better.

This week, Microsoft started rolling out the Windows 11 2024 update, but it quickly became clear that the company was far more eager to unveil new features for its Copilot AI and Copilot AI PCs. In this episode, Devindra and Cherlynn chat about Microsoft's current AI priorities, and what it means for people with older PCs. Also, we discuss the death of HoloLens and Microsoft giving up on AR as Meta, Apple and even Snap build for an augmented reality future. Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News! Tech debt led to Sonos' disastrous app relaunch, will they be able to win users back? Google is making Gmail summaries more useful and adding a "happening soon" tab to your inbox – 41:11 Harvard students hack together facial recognition for Meta's smart glasses that instantly doxes strangers – 44:00 ...

Devindra: because like you could just always just take a photo of something and be like, yeah, that's how we wonder if it's going to Cherlynn: be a ram hog.

It's been a quiet week of news, but we've been feverishly testing Microsoft's new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop Copilot AI PCs. In this episode, Devindra and Sam will answer your questions about Microsoft's new hardware, and we'll deliver some of our first impressions. It turns out Microsoft may have finally gotten Windows on Arm support right! And some of the Copilot AI features are actually useful, surprisingly enough. But we'll have to wait a few months to test out the controversial Recall feature, which was pulled from the Copilot launch. Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News! Wired report: AI search engine Perplexity is ignoring robots.txt Listener question: What do you do with 8 gig fiber home internet? Joining me today is Senior Writer from Engadget, Sam Rutherford. I'm doing okay because we finally have some Copilot Plus PCs. Sam has the Surface Laptop, I have the Surface Pro. And we've just started testing these things. They came in late and we're just like trying to get Arubia as quickly as we can for both of us, but we've got some impressions here. We're going to be taking some questions from our live stream. Cause it's a pretty light news week, but yeah, if you join us Thursday mornings, around 10 30 AM Eastern on our YouTube channel. You too can participate and ask us questions. See us show off some gadgets. We'll show off some stuff live from the Surface Pro. So if you're listening to this in audio form, go back and watch the video, cause you can actually see us test out some features and show off the hardware too. As always folks, if you're enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to us in iTunes or your podcatcher of choice, leave us a review in iTunes. That's always super helpful and drop us [00:01:00]an email at podcast at engadget. Question for you, Sam, what was your first impression upon tearing open the Surface Laptop? Sam: Right away I think it's good they didn't mess with the design. The design was never the issue for the Surfaces, they're, very beautifully crafted. And, opening up and this is going to sound like silly, but it's it functioned exactly like a windows 11 laptop is supposed to. And that was like, Hey, this is actually an improvement from, previous attempts at windows on arm right away. It seems like they, Microsoft has nailed all the important aspects.

This week has felt like a month worth of news, now that we've wrapped up Apple's WWDC 2024 and Summer Game Fest in LA. In this episode, Cherlynn and Devindra discuss their final thoughts on Apple Intelligence and the company's upcoming software, and they chat about some of our coverage highlights from the pseudo-E3 Game Fest. Also, we dive into X making likes private (what is Elon hiding?!) and the news around Sony buying the Alamo Drafthouse theater chain. Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News! Summer Games Fest highlights: Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, LEGO Horizon Adventures, and an Assassin's Creed finally set in Japan – 25:06 X makes users' likes private – 40:27 Devindra: We are back from Apple's WWDC, and we have thoughts. And I feel like, It's just one of those whirlwind things. Both Trillin and I got back in from California yesterday. After recording this, I still feel like my body doesn't know, like, where I'm in, Trillin, or what time zone. I don't know how you feel. Cherlynn: I went to the gym at 8 a. m. Devindra: I like how you fit in the humble brag there. We're also going to be talking about Summer Game Fest, folks. We weren't there for that and I was trying to get Jess Condit on, but she's super busy still writing up stuff from that. So we have got a lot of coverage around that and there's some stories I want to highlight that Engadget has done. Also some games that looks pretty cool. Also joining us this morning is podcast producer Ben Ellman, who I'm sure has thoughts on Apple and the game stuff. And [00:01:00] as always, folks, if you're enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or your podcast or of choice, leave us a review in iTunes. I would love to answer some reader questions. You can also typically join us Thursday mornings around 10 30 a. m. It's just like about scheduling, but that's about the time you can carve out in your schedule for us. You could see us on video. Sometimes we'll demo gadgets and We'll just have a great Q and a session too. I do want to point out if you're just listening to this episode, we did do a bonus episode at Apple's campus and it actually turned out pretty well because for Lynn and I were like right outside the, was it the Mac cafe or cafe Mac? But we were outdoors surrounded by traffic and other noise, but it actually ended up sounding pretty good.

There was no new Apple hardware at WWDC 2024, but Apple still had tons of news around AI and its upcoming operating systems. In this bonus episode, Cherlynn and Devindra brave the California heat to discuss Apple Intelligence and how it's different than other AI solutions. And they dive into other new features they're looking forward to, like the iPhone mirroring in macOS Sequoia and iPadOS 18's surprisingly cool Calculator app. Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News! This is Devindra here, and we are live at Apple Park. Cherlynn and I are in the middle of covering Apple's WWDC conference. Cherlynn: We are, I feel quite zen right now, because even though I have a lot more meetings coming up, we are seated outside, it's nice out, and even though it's really hot, it's not dying.