6 Months Later

You can pre-order one starting April 24th. Check out this guide from The Verge on all the places to try and get one.

In a new report from The Information (re-reported by MacRumors), it turns out that Siri’s development is as messy as you’d expect. The company has yet to ship the more intelligent Siri, which was shown off at WWDC last year. Most Siri demos were fictitious, an apparent reversal of Apple’s longstanding practices.

This week, we received an email from reMarkable informing us that due to increased costs (aka the Trump tariffs), prices in the US would rise starting in May. This is a clever way to increase demand while, at the same time, alerting customers that if the tariffs did go into effect, prices would rise. This is the first alert we’ve come across like this for products we’re covering. Now that the US Administration has paused higher tariffs on most countries for 90 days (leaving 10% global tariffs in place), but high tariffs on China are still active, it’s unclear whether the price is still going up.

This fascinating story from Wired details how Google was caught flat-footed by the launch of ChatGPT, and how it raced to build what we now know as Gemini, the AI-powered assistant now on millions of Android devices.

At $499, it brings a lot of value. But it’s still missing a few useful features due to RAM limitations. Pixel Screenshots and Call Notes are missing, which we’ll discuss in our upcoming long-term review of the Pixel 9 Pro XL (out this weekend).

Oh dang, it's actually missing some nice features.

[image or embed]

— Josh Teder (@joshteder.bsky.social) March 20, 2025 at 5:51 PM

As reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, there’s a shakeup happening in Cupertino. Vision Pro chief Mike Rockwell will take over the Siri team at Apple. CEO Time Cook has reportedly “lost confidence” in the current Siri leadership team. Rockwell will report directly to Craig Federighi, Apple’s software engineering chief.

As reported by The Verge, Sonos has canceled its competitor to the Apple TV 4K and Google TV Streamer. The main differentiating feature of the Sonos steamer was the ability to combine different Sonos speakers into a surround sound/Atmos configuration. Very cool! Competing against the big tech companies and Roku in this space was likely too tall of an order for a company still reeling from last year’s app debacle, which overshadowed the Sonos Ace headphones launch.  

It’s making us regret buying a separate adapter for each region we visited last year. This new charger (affiliate link) is quite slim and charges five devices simultaneously with an AC outlet, two USB-A ports, and two USB-C ports, one delivering 20W fast charging. Very cool design!

As reported by The Verge, Android phones will also be getting lock screen widgets, similar to those already on Pixel Tablets. You can read more about the new widgets in Google’s Developers Blog.

Previously, if you wanted to power two external displays with an M3 MacBook Air, you could….but with the lid closed, which isn’t ideal. With this year’s model, as reported by MacRumors, you can now power up to two displays at 6K resolution, each at 60Hz AND keep the lid open to use the keyboard and trackpad.

According to reports, a truly smarter Siri like what Amazon showed off with Alexa+, where the Assistant can turn off your lights and have full natural conversations with you, is still years away.

The new Alexa+ will be rolling out gradually, first, to owners of the Echo Show 21, 15, 10, or 8, who are eligible for free early access. It’ll eventually roll out to most existing Amazon devices. Alexa+ will cost $19.99 (US) a month but will be free for Prime members. It’ll also be available via a new web interface and in a new app. Here’s a video the company showed off demoing some of its new capabilities:

When you click on our RSS feeds icon you’ll be taken to our new Feeds page. Here you can subscribe to our main posts feed, quick post feed, plus we’ve added important context for those who may be unfamiliar with RSS. We’ve also added new category and specific tag feeds (like Reviews, Apple, Samsung, etc) at the bottom of the page.

In a blog post, the company announced the 12-inch laptop aimed at schools and those who don’t need a top-tier laptop. It comes in various colors and flips like a Lenovo Yoga tablet/computer hybrid. It looks very cool! They also announced their first-ever desktop computer. And an update to their 13-inch laptop. No pricing has been announced yet on the 12-inch laptop. Pre-orders are up for the desktop computer and upgraded 13-inch laptop. The desktop will ship as early as Q3 2025. The new 12-inch laptop is going up for pre-order in April and should be available mid-2025 (though, knowing Framework, there might be delays).