Android may be known for its open roots and freedom of choice, but I’m a user of simple tastes. As a life-long Nexus and Pixel fan, I’ve always preferred the “Google experience” over other Android launchers and skins. But times change, and the Android ecosystem has grown up a lot in 17 years. After a stint with Samsung’s newest foldable last month, it’s clearer now than ever that Pixel’s falling behind other flagships, and something needs to change.

When I set out to write my Pixel 10 Pro XL review, I had a very different article in mind. Diving deep into the “S” generation of Google’s current lineup, I expected the Pixel series to age like a fine wine. If done right, Pixel 10 would sand down the rougher edges of last year’s lauded refresh, and for the most part, Google succeeded. Here are a couple highlights:

• The Tensor G5 chips makes the jump from Samsung to TSMC this year, leading to better CPU performance and lowered heat output.

• There’s a new PWM-friendly accessibility solution for folks who hate screen flicker (available on “Pro” Pixels only).

• The camera system has a vastly improved zoom, thanks to a new 100x lens and some clever AI enhancements (also available only on Pixel Pro models).

• Qi2 support is integrated directly into the phone, but don’t call it MagSafe! Pixelsnap has the magnets you’ve always wanted with no cases or stickers necessary.

Overall, all three phones this year are nice upgrades. They’re not groundbreaking. They’re not innovative. They’re nice. With several notable quality-of-life improvements in tow, the Pixel 10 series is a little better than its predecessor, and that should be enough, right?

Not if you’re comparing it to other flagships on the market today.

Here’s Where Things Go Downhill

While every new Pixel generation gets a spec bump that falls in line with Google’s broader business model (to become a leader in the AI space), the company’s hot pursuit of artificial relevance leaves Pixel wanting in several key areas, and it’s starting to annoy me:

When benchmarks underperform, that’s okay, because numbers aren’t everything. When the flagship price is a little too high for mid-tier specs, no bother, because the Pixel UX is optimized to compensate. When the GPU struggles to play graphically intensive games, that’s fine, because it was designed for AI — no one buys a Pixel to play games, right?

But why not? After 10 years of Pixel, why is there anything a Pixel Pro can’t do beside a Samsung Galaxy or an iPhone? Why do I have to choose if I want a device that’s great at AI or a pocket computer that excels at practically everything else? Why can’t I have both with the Google experience on top? Why can’t I have what I want?

It’s easy to accept shortcomings when sizing up the cheaper Pixel A lineup. I’ve owned several of those in the past, and each were delightful in their own way. But Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, and Pixel 10 Pro XL are flagship phones with flagship prices, and users deserve flagship performance to match. There shouldn’t be any compromises. None.

If Google wants to prioritize AI, that’s great, but Pixel shouldn’t have to sacrifice raw power and performance to get it? No other flagship phone does that, and saying otherwise is clearly a cop out to cover for Google’s lackluster chip designs.

You Can Have It All

Case in point, I recently got my hands on a Galaxy Fold 7, and it blew me away. Even with a chip that launched a year ago, it was fast, fluid, performant, and just plain fun. Samsung deserves plenty of credit for their decades of hardware R&D, gorgeous display tech, and innovations in foldable hardware, but the last bit goes straight to Qualcomm.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy makes Google’s switch to Tensor look like a mistake. It’s proof that you can make a mobile chipset that spits out wicked-fast benchmarks, puts it all to the metal when booting up demanding apps, and has enough juice left over for AI at the end. Snapdragon even supports Gemini Nano, for goodness sakes – the same local model that runs on Pixel!

So what’s the point of Tensor if Snapdragon can do all the same stuff, but faster?

Tensor Turmoil

Many, including myself, expected Tensor to leap ahead in performance this year, now that TSMC has taken over manufacturing duties from Samsung. That’s the same group that produces Apple’s A-series chips for iPhone and even some M-series chips for Mac, all of which are wicked-fast in their own right. However, Tensor G5 only made modest gains this year compared to G4, which only made modest gains compared to G3 the year before that.

There’s no other way to say it. Five generations in, Tensor is holding Pixel back. While it may have been the first mobile chip to prioritize AI, Snapdragon passed it up ages ago, and there’s no sense in keeping it around. Tensor is at a crossroads where it needs to either buck up on the performance front or buzz off so Pixel can compete with other flagships, pound for pound — not just in AI.

There’s still a part of me that thinks this year is the final stopgap before Tensor G6 makes the gains we’ve been waiting for. With more time to cook alongside TSMC, Google will finally turn Tensor into an all-around powerhouse so that users don’t have to choose whether they want an AI phone or a high-performance phone. They can have it all! Next year, Tensor will be better. Next year.

Then again, we’ve been saying this for several years now, and it’s time to stop pretending that Google cares about anything other than AI. Maybe they don’t want a more performant chip. Maybe they’re happy with the way things are, and anything outside of that is just wishful thinking.

With Tensor at the helm, Pixel isn’t for power users. It’s for the everyday user, particularly iPhone switchers and AI enthusiasts, a sentiment that was echoed in Google’s latest Pixel event where celebrity hosts and influencers got more screen time than Pixel itself. Google is shifting Pixel’s brand image away from the tech enthusiasts it was built for, and they’re now catering to the lifestyle crowd they hope to capture. Google is positioning Pixel as the phone for the masses, and in doing so, they’re leaving long-time fans like me behind.

It’s All Gone, Girl

This article actually wasn’t supposed to be my review. It was a first impression piece before the deep dive, but that all went out the window pretty quick. After I unboxed my Pixel 10 Pro XL and set it up, it didn’t take long to realize that its performance is only negligibly better than my Pixel 9 Pro XL. And after Material 3 Expressive landed on Pixels everywhere, I didn’t notice much of a difference between the two at all. Putting aside my love for gaming (and the fact that neither device handles this all that well), they both felt like the same phone.

The biggest red flag, though, came at the start of day two. As I held my new Pixel 10 Pro XL in my hands, all I could think about was how much I regretted giving up my Z Fold 7 for a slightly better version of the Pixel I already had. As I said in my Z Fold 7 review, I couldn’t justify owning both devices at the same time, so I returned the Fold with the hope that Pixel 10 would be worth the sacrifice. There’s only enough room in my pocket for one, but sadly, the Pixel 10 Pro XL isn’t it, either.

So I did the only thing I could do. I boxed up my Pixel 10 Pro XL on day three and sent it back. Will I get another Z Fold Z? Maybe. Fall Prime Day and Black Friday are all coming up, and Samsung’s sure to have some killer deals. Will I wait for a new Galaxy S26 Ultra in January? It’s tempting. Maybe I bide my time and wait for Pixel 11? If only my wishful thinking would prevail.

I Didn’t Leave Pixel. Pixel Left Me.

Whatever happens next, one thing seems clear: I’m not sure Pixel is meant for me anymore.

Don’t get me wrong; Pixel has a lot of features that I love. For starters, I put a lot of stock in downloading Android updates direct from Google, as soon as they’re ready. Pixel Drops are another fun software perk that keep the experience exciting. I’ve been in love with Material Design since day one, and I love it even more in its Expressive era. It’s nice to have built-in AI features that are actually useful. I’ll never miss the extra bloat that comes with other handsets; the pure Google Android experience just feels like home.

Pixel also doesn’t do many things that I value in a device. As a power user, I need raw performance to blitz through tasks and keep me connected. I need something that can play games smoothly and reliably, lest my Genshin Impact addiction goes unaddressed. I also want a device that can handle my workload, if and when the desktop version of Android turns into a viable desktop/laptop replacement. In short, I want the most computer in my pocket that I can get, and after a decade on Nexus/Pixel, the Z Fold 7 showed me what I’ve been missing.

As Pixel charts its path deeper into AI, the compromises under the hood are becoming more noticeable by the year, and I can’t write it off anymore. Google Pixel as a whole package is missing the performance element that power users crave, and if I can’t get it from Google, I have no choice but to look elsewhere. Software optimizations and AI tricks can go a long way on a modern smartphone, but some tasks require raw power, and no amount of benchmark-busting excuses can hide it.

Is a week enough time to test one of the hottest phones of the year? Probably not, so I took a week and a half, and now I think I have a good grasp on the newest foldable on the market, inside and out. Here’s my official review of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 — the good, the bad, and whether or not I plan to send it back.

A thought kept turning over in my head as I pulled the Galaxy Z Fold 7 out of its box for the first time: this thing feels impossible. Impossibly thin. Impossibly light. Impossibly premium. The usual descriptors like “stunning” and “gorgeous” didn’t even come close. The phone, even as I held it in my hands, just didn’t feel real, and yet it was right there. Tangible. Foldable. A piece of art.

Then the reality of that impossible thinness started to kick in.

First-Time Fears

I had some very real fears straight out of the box. Granted, I haven’t worried about the durability of a smartphone for well over a decade. On top of that, the only time I’ve ever broken a phone was thanks to a freak accident in college. It slipped out of my pocket while jogging across a busy street, after which it was promptly crushed by a bus. That wasn’t a good day.

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is different. It has more moving parts than most phones, and the inner display, though improved over past Fold phones, is made of a material that’s far more delicate than the reinforced glass found on a typical slab. Even after all these years of development, the interior screen will scratch at a measly level 2 on the Mohs Hardness Scale (compliments to JerryRigEverything for destroying his Z Fold 7 so I didn’t have to).

I started to wonder if I could accidentally scratch the inner display with my fingernail, or get a piece of pocket lint stuck in the hinge, or something else that I haven’t thought of yet — you know, the kind of things you just don’t have to worry about with a tried and true slab smartphone.

Thankfully, Dan Seifert of The Verge fame and now a product critic at Google, was quick to quash my fears, and he wasn’t the only one. Several existing Fold owners on Threads also came to assure me that I had nothing to worry about, so I started to relax. Maybe everything was going to be alright.

I’m Your Fool

Before we get too deep into this review, I’ve got another confession to make (cue the Foo Fighters soundtrack). I’m a fan of Samsung hardware. I’ve owned several Samsung phones over the years, and I liked most of them. But the cold, hard truth: only one of them ran Android.

The last Samsung phone I bought with my own money was a Galaxy S3. A year later, I got a job with Samsung as part of their Samsung Experience Store launch at Best Buys from coast to coast, where I sold S4s, Note 3s, and the very first version of the Galaxy Gear that landed before the days of Android Wear. That means my most recent memory of a Samsung phone came with a TouchWiz wrapper layered on top of Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

Fast forward a decade later. Aside from mindlessly scrolling through a test unit at a local store or glancing at the S25 Ultra in my brother-in-law’s hand, I’ve never experienced One UI on the daily.

Why? Because I’m a Google Pixel guy. And before that, I was in the Nexus camp. Although I’ve tried many Android devices over the years, Google’s version of Android is the one I fell in love with back in the Jelly Bean era, and I’ve been hooked ever since. It just feels like home.

That all changed when my Galaxy Z Fold 7 arrived. With my new foldable in hand, this past week+ is the longest I’ve used a non-purist Android phone. Will I love it? Hate it? Return it? It’s finally time to find out.

Hardware Part 1: Unbendable Like Beckham

I’ve said it a dozen times, and it deserves to be said again: the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is impossibly thin. In fact, it may even be too thin.

When folded, the phone feels great in the hand. Most people wouldn’t even know it can fold out at all. I had my mother-in-law hold it, and she didn’t realize its true identity until my wife, bursting with anticipation, spilled the beans before she could figure it out herself. With most of the proportions of a typical slab, the Z Fold 7 is the perfect foldable in disguise, both for knowing users and unsuspecting newcomers.

But unfolded into tablet mode, the device is razor-thin. On one hand, it’s a manufacturing marvel that the Z Fold 7 is as sleek as it is. Whoever packed it all into this chassis deserves a raise. On the other hand, it’s so svelte that there really isn’t a lot to hold onto when using it. It feels delicate, vulnerable, and fragile, like one wrong move could snap it in two. I haven’t tried that myself, of course, because I’m generally in the business of preserving my devices, but again, JerryRigEverything brings my greatest fears to life. I mean, look at how easily it bends! Just watch it-...wait a second. Is it actually bendgate-proof!?

I’ll admit, I was surprised when I saw the results of JerryRigEverything’s torture test. Given the dimensions of the phone, I expected we’d crown a new bendgate champion, and that clearly didn’t happen. However, despite watching Zack Nelson do his best to turn a Galaxy Z Fold 7 into two Z Fold 3.5s, I still had two close calls with my own phone that made me a little nervous.

On day two, I forgot which way the phone was oriented in my hands, and I tried to fold it along the line opposite to the crease instead of with the crease. I stopped applying pressure the moment I felt the phone resist with a reluctant creak, and I pulled back, no harm, no foul. A couple days later, I went to fold the phone properly, this time putting my finger a little too close to one of the inner hinge mechanisms, and it let out an unsettling popping sound as I closed the phone. Panicked, I opened and closed the phone a few more times, and nothing was damaged or out of place. The sound also never came back. Thank goodness.

Still, it’s little things like these that remind me how quickly a $2K masterpiece could become an otherwise beautiful paperweight. Just one misplaced finger or a lapse of attention, and I can see how someone could break a Z Fold 7 before they realize they did it. Then again, we all just watched a man actively try (and fail) to tear one in half, so maybe my concerns are invalid.

Tell me why I’m being silly in the comments below.

Hardware Part 2: The Fold Awakens

Irrational fears aside, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention the hardware highlights that make the Z Fold 7 a manufacturing marvel.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy is a fantastic chip with snappy performance, powerful graphics, and decent heat management. It’s even better when you can cram all that performance into such an easily pocketable phone that’s also a tablet. Again, it doesn’t feel possible to have it all, yet this phone exists.

Thermals are a clear high point. The only time the Z Fold 7 got warm was during extended gaming sessions, but even then, the heat was never unbearable, and performance never took a hit. I even sacrificed an entire weekend to play games on the inner screen, but it never skipped a beat. I’m very impressed.

The dual speakers are also surprisingly robust for a device this thin. They pump out plenty of feedback while watching videos or playing games. Granted, it doesn’t have the bass to shake itself off its hinges, but the output is more than serviceable. My only complaint is that, depending on which orientation you hold the Z Fold 7, sometimes your hands will cover the speakers and muffle the experience.

Lastly, the overall build quality of this thing is simply stunning. The Z Fold 7 feels like it was expertly crafted, each complex piece fitting together to form one sleek, beautifully refined gem. It’s immaculate. Even if you never buy a Z Fold 7, you should run out to your nearest store and hold one in your hands. Then you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Software Sundry

This won’t come as a surprise to anyone already in the Samsung ecosystem, but my brothers and sisters on the Pixel side need to know that if Pixel is all about simplifying Android, One UI is a Swiss Army Knife. I was delightfully surprised to find all the added customization options and capabilities. You can tweak everything. Sort the app drawer, stack your widgets, run more than three apps at a time, change your default AI assistant, take advantage of extra features built into Samsung’s suite of first-party apps, slide out the Edge Panel for better access to your favorite people, apps, etc. If there’s something you’d like to do or change in One UI, Samsung will probably let you.

The snappiness of One UI overall deserves its own award. It’s fast, fluid, and I didn’t run into a single stutter. Not once. While the Pixel Launcher is seen as the gold standard for how a skin should perform on Android, One UI is a close second, if not pulling ahead. Some of this may be driven by more powerful hardware, like the Z Fold 7’s wicked-fast Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy vs. the Pixel 9 Pro XL’s slower Tensor G4. But Samsung has also spent years optimizing One UI, and it shows. They’ve come a loooooong way since the days of TouchWiz.

If I had to distill it down into a sentence, One UI is the culmination of a bunch of little quality-of-life changes that make it feel more powerful, productive, and interesting than the Pixel Launcher.

Closing Arguments

When I bought the Galaxy Z Fold 7 for review, I gave myself an ultimatum: if it wasn’t an indispensable piece of my digital life by the time this article hit the web, I would send it back. Now that my test window is finished, I can say that my decision wasn’t an easy one.

There are a lot of things I like about the Z Fold 7:

• The convenience of a phone when I need it and a tablet when I want it is the main appeal for a foldable like this one, and it’s great to have that option on the fly without grabbing another device. It makes browsing the web, watching videos, reading books, playing games, and scrolling through social media feeds more enjoyable and engaging.

• The performance of the Snapdragon 8 Elite on all accounts – daily tasks, heavy gaming, AI features – makes Google’s move to Tensor look like a mistake (though that may change soon, with TSMC as Google’s new chip foundry of choice).

• One UI 8 has been a delight to test out for the first time ever, and I love the customization options sprawled throughout the operating system and Samsung’s core apps. One UI 8 takes the best of Android 16 and makes it even more capable, if that’s even possible.

• The entire Z Fold 7 experience feels very thoughtful and meticulously crafted to convey elegance, capability, and quality. It’s a delight to hold and an even bigger joy to use.

There are also plenty of things I don’t like about it:

• As it turns out, the battery life hasn’t been all that great, and fast charging is much slower than expected. I went from 15% to 80% in 51 minutes and it took 87 minutes to hit 100%. I’m not sure I would trust the Z Fold 7 on a long day away from a charger without a battery pack.

• The durability of the inner display is still a red flag. Despite reassurances from people far smarter than me, I’m still nervous I’m going to scratch it or even break it. On top of that, I can’t imagine having a phone long-term that I have to cautiously use for the next year or two. That just sounds unnecessarily stressful.

• Then there’s the matter of the price. Just a couple weeks ago, I argued that the 3-in-1 nature of a phone + tablet + Dex made the Z Fold 7 worth the MSRP, but I couldn’t get Dex to work with my display setup, so my rationale is slowly crumbling. Plus, it’s hard to swallow that kind of cash for a phone that is still notably more fragile than most devices.

• Finally, for some reason, my Z Fold 7 doesn’t fold out completely flat after it’s been folded for a while. If I leave it unfolded long enough, it does eventually level out, but it’s back to being a few degrees off when I unfold it again a couple hours later. This is a small gripe for sure, but it’s annoying for a phone this expensive, and I’m not alone.

My biggest Z Fold 7 deterrent, though, is that at the end of the day, it’s still not a Pixel. I’m drawn to Google’s version of hardware and software because of the benefits you can’t get anywhere else. I want to be among the first to have the newest versions of Android. Pixel-first features and regular Pixel Feature Drops have become a bright spot to look forward to. I prefer the Google ecosystem with Pixel phone and Pixel Watch working beautifully in tandem, plus added perks like native Fitbit and Gemini integration are more appealing to me than Bixby and Samsung Health. Sure, you can make Gemini the primary LLM on the Z Fold 7, but the newest features still come to Pixel before anyone else.

As much as I’ve been impressed with One UI and the Z Fold 7, I prefer to live on the bleeding edge of Android software in the way that Google designed it — on Pixel.

Don’t get me wrong. I still think the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is the best foldable for users who have been waiting all these years to take the plunge. Even if the phone isn’t everything I need it to be in a daily driver, the experience is worth trying to see if it’s right for you. If you’ve ever been curious about folding phones, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is the best place to start.

Verdict: Will it Stay or Will it Go Now?

So here we are — the end of the review. Did the Galaxy Z Fold 7 become so indispensable in a week+ that I simply can’t live without it? With more time, could it dethrone my Pixel for the right to live in my front pocket for the next 6-12 months or more? Will I keep the Galaxy Fold 7, or will I return it?

As much as it pains me to say it, I think I’ll send the Z Fold 7 back.

It’s a great phone — truly one of the best I’ve recently tested, and I think it might even be the best foldable on the market. If the Z Fold 7 had come out earlier this year, I could probably even justify keeping it. But alas, Pixel season is quickly approaching, and I’m already looking for an excuse to trade my Pixel 9 Pro XL for a Pixel 10 Pro XL with its rumored PWM improvements and faster Tensor G5 chip built by TSMC.

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 was a lot of fun, but in the end, it wasn’t indispensable. Its shortcomings around battery life + slow charging speeds, concerns over the inner display’s longevity, and the sticker shock of that hefty price tag all led me to return it.

I’m going to miss the Galaxy Z Fold 7, but there’s just not enough room for me to keep a $2K foldable when I know a different device is getting ready to take up space in my front pocket. As for how that all turns out, you can catch my thoughts on the newest Pixel phones and watches in my next full-length review.

My Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 arrived on Wednesday, two days before it was originally scheduled to show up at my door. Needless to say, I was ecstatic for the chance to try it out alongside everyone else who was also lucky enough to get a visit from their courier. Now, after my first 48 hours with the phone, here are my thoughts.

Just in case you didn’t see my initial take on the Galaxy Z Fold 7, this is my first foldable phone. It’s not a review unit. It wasn’t lent to me by anybody. I bought it and paid for it with my own money.

Truth be told, I dragged my feet on buying my first foldable. Why? Because, up until very recently, the foldable market has been a little iffy. Even for a tech behemoth like Samsung, it took them 6 years of attempts to build a foldable that finally feels fully baked.

The Z Fold 7’s front display is just barely big enough to use comfortably on its own, the thinness in its folded and unfolded modes is staggeringly slim, the interior glass is more durable, and the inner crease is shrinking. I could’ve waited another year to try out a folding phone, but given the leaps and bounds Samsung covered with this year’s model, now just seemed like the right time.

Now that I have one in-hand and I’ve been using it for a bit, I have quite a few early takeaways to cover:

1. The first thing that came to mind when I pulled the Z Fold 7 out of the box was that it’s thin. It’s impossibly thin. Even as I typed this very sentence on the Z Fold 7, the phone didn’t feel real. I’m still not sure how Samsung crammed so much power and performance into such a svelte chassis.

2. The second thought in my head was that the build quality and materials are first-class. The colors this year are gorgeous, and even though most reviewers are sporting the Blue Shadow variant, Jetblack was too good to pass up. The frame is solid with no gaps or creaks, and the body is light but substantial, giving off an air of premium luxury that fits its hefty price tag. In short, the Z Fold 7 feels like a piece of art. This may be the prettiest phone Samsung's ever made.

3. The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy screams in the best way possible. Coming from a Pixel 9 Pro XL, the UI feels faster and more responsive, and the gaming performance is in its own league. I can easily see this phone keeping up with the competition for years to come.

4. Thermals have also been quite impressive for a device this thin. Even when playing graphically intensive games like Genshin Impact for a couple hours straight, overheating and throttling are a non-issue. That said, I won’t say it doesn’t get warm; it certainly heats up a bit when put under pressure, but it never felt uncomfortable. Pro Tip: If things get too spicy, you can unfold the phone and turn it upside down so that you’re holding the cool top screen instead of the warm main body where the chip lives.

5. The aspect ratios took a bit of time to get used to. The outer display is still slightly more narrow than a typical slab phone, even though it’s been bumped out practically every year since the first Fold landed in 2019. The inner display is also very square, but it's a delight for browsing the web, reading books on Kindle, and playing games. I haven’t done much multitasking yet, but I’ve already seen other reviewers run 3 or more apps at a time.

6. I’ve had a mixed experience with battery life. The first full day was pretty great, while the second full day came with some mysterious battery drain. I’ve heard the same thing from a few other reviewers as well, so maybe the battery just needs to get settled in. Luckily, charging has been pretty quick on 2/3 of my top-offs so far, with the third outlier going pretty slow for reasons unknown. Again, maybe the software just needs to acclimate. This is something I’ll keep an eye on going forward.

7. Despite the Z Fold 7’s physical footprint, the device feels closer to a small phone than a big one when folded. The outer display typefaces are tiny. The keyboard is cramped. Playing games in a wide 21:9 aspect ratio feels too narrow. As a big phone fan, these drawbacks make me want a larger, wider Ultra upgrade really bad. Maybe next year.

At the end of the first 48 hours with my Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, a few questions remain: Is it good enough to keep? Will the buyer’s remorse over that hefty price tag kick in? Can it pull me away from my trusty Pixel 9 Pro XL for good? Am I falling in love with my first foldable, or is it just an early-test fling?

Check back in a week to find out.

Every year, I say I’m going to buy a foldable smartphone, and every year, they don’t quite seem ready. There’s a missing feature here, a compromise there, and don’t even get me started on the prices! But finally, after ushering the foldable category into the mainstream limelight, Samsung has finally put together the best option you can buy in the US. Here’s why the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is the first foldable I’d recommend for the masses.

Flipping Out Over the Fold

Let’s get something straight off the bat. Samsung makes two folding phones (the Z Fold and the Z Flip), but only one of them ever made sense to me. I don’t need a phone that gets smaller in my pocket; I need one that does more while it’s in my hand.

The Flip might have a cute party trick that harkens back to the good old days before sliders, keyboards, and ultimately smartphones took over, but the novelty stops just short of the nostalgia train. The Flip and phones like it (sorry Razr) just aren’t that useful. No, the holy grail of foldables for me was always a device that could be a phone when I needed it and a tablet when I wanted just a little more.

That’s exactly what the Z Fold 7 offers. After years of iteratively bumping out the outer and inner displays to greater dimensions, this year’s version finally hits all the marks. Looking at the Z Fold 7 head-on, you almost wouldn’t notice it’s a foldable at all. The display may be slightly slimmer than its S25 Ultra cousin, and the bezels are just a little more noticeable, but by most accounts, the outer display makes for a perfectly reasonable phone.

The same goes when you look at it from the side. The two halves of the Z Fold 7 are so slim that, when folded, the width of the phone is just barely larger than the S25 Ultra — a very reasonable metric. And when you unfold it, there’s almost nothing left to hold at all!

Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but this thing is slim – unbelievably slim, even. It doesn’t seem like it should be possible. I know Samsung isn’t the first company to make a device this slender, but it’s the first one to do it for the US market. Not to mention, Samsung is the largest smartphone OEM on the planet, making them the first capable of producing this thin of a device at scale. That all has to count for something, right? And if not, it’s still just so dang cool.

Foldable Funk

If I had to complain, the price tag is the worst part about the Z Fold 7. It’s expensive. There’s no way around it. And it’s even more expensive in the US this year. For many, the price tag is unjustifiable, and you’d be well within your rights to think that.

For me, though, the Z Fold 7 offers so much value that it’s hard to fault it on the price alone. This is a device that finally makes for a perfectly reasonable phone experience with its outer display. Early videos show that it’s easy to type, scroll, make calls — do everything you’d expect it to do. It’s great.

When unfolded, it also stands in as a great tablet. While it’s not the size of a standard iPad, it has the “mini” tablet category beat. It could easily replace a Kindle for reading books, and I’ve always loved this form factor for gaming, a feat that’s all the more enjoyable with the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy under the hood.

Then there’s Dex for light desktop tasks. It’s not going to replace a traditional desktop of PC, but Google’s desktop mode for Android 16 could change that.

High Price With a High Value

On the surface, Z Fold 7 is a very pricey phone. But if you zoom out, it’s really three devices in one — phone, tablet, desktop. It does it all, and the coolest part is that you can carry all three with you in your pocket.

Is the Z Fold 7 perfect? Or course not. It’s technically not the thinnest foldable on the market. The unchanged battery capacity leaves plenty of questions around day-to-day longevity. I have concerns about heat dissipation and performance throttling that haven’t been tested yet. The PWM on the display is also still locked at 480Hz from last year’s Z Fold 6.

There’s room for improvement next year. But for 2025, the Samsung’s latest foldable gets so much right that the downsides don’t seem all that important. The Z Fold 7 is the best foldable Samsung’s ever made, bar none, and for all the reasons I mentioned above, it’s a great first foldable for anyone who’s been curious about foldables but never took the plunge. This is the one you’ve been waiting for.

It’s the one I’ve been waiting for, too, which is why I pre-ordered on day one, and I can’t wait to try it out at the end of July. See you then!

As Apple inches toward transforming the Mac into a tried and true PC gaming platform, some very clear comparisons are forming between Apple’s gaming strategy and one of the industry’s biggest letdowns of the decade. In fact, in many ways, the two mirror one another almost perfectly. Let’s take a closer look at how Mac’s gaming endeavors are on a parallel path with the defunct Google Stadia.

A Lively Community

Every gaming platform is driven by its community. You see them fight the console wars on social media. You watch them flock to event stages at major award shows. Wherever you look, you’ll find a sea of blue, green, and red as players champion their favorite platform of choice, sometimes even declaring that theirs is better than the rest.

Mac is no different. Just as Stadia had a small but avid group of fans (here’s looking at you, # TeamStadia), Mac gamers also like to rally around each other. Just one look at the Mac Gaming Subredditpaints of picture of devoted Mac gamers practically begging for their platform of choice to be unleashed.

It’s this group that pushes Mac gaming forward. They celebrate developer wins, weigh in on upcoming games, and call out problems with the platform as it grows. The community is who the games are for, and just like Stadia, these vocal few are the frontline that want Mac gaming to succeed the most.

Content is King

That can’t happen, though, until developers decide to port their games to the platform. Though we’ve heard whispers of some developers working to bring over huge titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Control Ultimate Edition, and Dead Island 2, most of the promised games are older and not as popular as they were at launch.

Stadia had this problem, too. It would often receive ports of old games, even as new titles dropped weekly on the big three consoles. That’s not to say Stadia never saw any new releases, but it certainly didn’t get the new developer support it needed to keep the platform afloat.

Now Mac’s in the same boat. While it’s great to fill out its back catalogue with old content, the only way to push Mac forward as a gaming platform is to grab big day and date titles, like Crimson Desert and Cronos: The New Dawn. Mac desperately needs more of these now.

So far, the only AAA developers who have supported Mac consistently are Capcom with multiple Resident Evil titles available across Apple’s ecosystem and Ubisoft with several Assassin’s Creed games now online to buy. These are a good start, but it’s not enough for healthy long-term growth.

Game Store Walled Garden

One of the bigger critiques against Stadia was that games had to be ported directly to Stadia’s online games store and purchased separately instead of letting players bring their libraries over from Steam, a la GeForce NOW and Boosteroid.

Again, Mac is in a similar situation.

Officially, Apple has said that they don’t care where developers port their games. The Mac App Store is an obvious choice. Steam also has a Mac app, as does the Epic Games Store. But while Steam and Epic boast higher player counts across the board, a dubiously big number of Mac game ports are only available on the App Store, including Death Stranding and Assassin’s Creed: Shadows.

Why developers would skip the most popular PC gaming platform on the planet – Steam – for the Mac App Store (which is historically filled with mobile ports from iPhone and iPad) is beyond me. Maybe it has something to do with plans to support the entire Apple ecosystem of devices in the future, or maybe Apple’s offering financial incentives under the table? Who really knows?

But given how things shook out with Stadia’s locked online store, this feels like a mistake on Apple’s part. It would make a lot more sense to encourage broad Steam support where players who already own games on Windows can easily play their existing purchases on their Mac, as well, all without having to rebuy games on the App Store.

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Exclusives

Even as big platform holders like Xbox abandon first-party exclusives for the sake of appealing to the broader market, PlayStation, Nintendo, and even Stadia know/knew that exclusives give players a reason to invest specifically in a single platform. Not only that, but exclusives also empower platform owners to push the limits of their hardware and software by designing games tailored to unleash the full power of their PCs and consoles.

Typically, Apple loves this strategy. They’re constantly touting how their custom hardware and finely tuned software are designed to work with one another for a smoother user experience. Why not extend this same philosophy to games? It only makes sense!

If Apple really wants to grab some gaming attention for Mac, they need their own game studio. Apple’s not far off from the same idea, either. They recently purchased RAC7, the makers of the mobile hit, Sneaky Sasquatch — emphasis on mobile.

Unfortunately, while the title offers delightful gameplay on the go, RAC7 is not a AAA developer, and it’s unlikely that they’ll suddenly become one anytime soon. So for now, Apple’s first foray into game development looks more like a play for iPhone and iPad instead of a real attempt at pushing the gaming boundaries of Mac. But maybe this will come with time.

Fool me once...

The last similarity between Mac gaming and Stadia is the list of broken promises. Just as Stadia execs swore up and down that their platform was in it for the long haul, Apple execs have proclaimed for years that now, Mac is finally serious about bringing games to their users.

No, really. They mean it this time.

But then nothing really happens. Sure, we got some developer tools, and there’s even a way to port Windows games to Mac with the Game Porting Toolkit. But other than that, there hasn’t been a ton of movement. No matter how you slice it, there still just aren’t that many AA and AAA games for Mac. Even worse, the trickle of titles revealed every year at WWDC has been slow and lackluster in terms of both quality and quantity.

There just aren’t enough good games to go around inside Apple’s walled garden, proving that the old adage, “if you build it, they will come” doesn’t always pan out, even for the biggest tech giant on the planet.

All in all, the state of Mac gaming isn’t great, even years after Apple declared Mac a viable gaming platform. You want to know the saddest punchline of all? Even Stadia supported more AA and AAA games in three years than Apple’s Mac platform has earned in five, and yet, Stadia couldn’t survive in the end.

Every Mac is a Gaming Mac

Not all hope is lost, though. There are actually two big reasons why developers should reconsider Mac as the next destination for their new games:

1. I’ll say the same thing I said in the early days of Stadia. Mac players are hungry for AA and AAA experiences. There are so few of them in the App Store and on Steam that players will practically buy anything that’s halfway decent, just to have something to play. So developers, port your game to the platform now, and watch the sales roll in.

2. Every Mac with an M-series Apple Silicon chip is capable of ridiculous power, battery life, and longevity. Sure, there are variations between what a fanless MacBook Air can do beside a fully-specced MacBook Pro, but every new Mac sold today is at least capable of some level of AA-AAA graphical performance. The potential to turn any Mac user into a gamer is high, as long as developers are willing to participate.

Apple’s Biggest Advantages Over Google Stadia

Taking all of this into account, it’s pretty easy to see that Mac gaming is at least turning down the same road as Stadia, picking up speed on the path to destruction. Whether or not they’ll continue along the same precarious route is a mystery, and if they do, they’re doomed. Right? Well, not exactly.

One of Apple’s biggest strengths is in the way it invests in its products and services. Although there are some minor blips here and there, generally speaking, Apple isn’t as quick to axe a product like those killed by Google.

Apple has proven that they don’t mind the slow and steady approach to developing their ecosystem. Look at Apple Intelligence! Even after a spectacular public fail last year, Apple has taken a year off to regroup and try again sometime next year with a whole gap year in between. Then there’s Siri, which has been a mass disappointment for well over a decade, yet they keep chugging along. I’m sure there are more examples, as well. Feel free to plug them in as you see fit.

Apple has also taken great steps over the years to defend their brand image, often painting themselves as trustworthy, reliable, and cool — all the things that inspire users to stick with their Apple products, even as competitors nip at their heals with sharper generative AI solutions, cleaner software designs, and more innovative features. It’s this strong brand loyalty that makes Apple the ideal candidate to launch a gaming platform that both developers and players will trust without fears of having it all stripped away in just a few short years.

If you need one more benefit, Apple also doesn’t have to keep an entire server farm up and running to support their gaming endeavors. They just need to keep making powerful Macs and provide a path for developers to port more games to the platform. It truly is that simple.

What Happens Next?

Apple’s playing the long game as it angles to capture the gaming crowd that it neglected for so long. Just as Apple Silicon took half a decade to replace Intel in every new Mac computer on the shelf, their gaming strategy is one designed to be played out over generations of hardware and software. In this way, Apple can afford to take it slow.

The only question now is whether or not players and developers are willing to wait on each other as Mac finds its footing in a crowded gaming arena, especially as mobile handsets like Steam Deck and the ASUS ROG Ally aim to revolutionize the hardware market again. Is Mac already too late to make an impact? Or is Apple silently positioning themselves to become the new king of the PC master race? Only time will tell.

Since the dawn of the smartphone, I always wanted a device that could “do it all” — be portable enough to carry around as a handset, yet powerful enough to replace my desktop when paired with a mouse, keyboard, and monitor. Though many have tried to create this elusive unicorn of a phone, most have failed...until now. New evidence suggests that Google is building native desktop support directly into their mobile OS, and if that happens, Android could easily surpass Microsoft and Apple as the operating system to rule every device category on the market.

This isn’t the first time Google has dabbled with a desktop mode for Android. Just last year, Google tested ChromeOS desktop integration, an experiment that was ultimately killed off several months later. At the time, everyone thought this was the end of Google’s desktop ambitions for Android. In fact, VP of Engineering, Dave Burke, had this to say in a special episode of the Android Faithful podcast:

“And so then we were like, ‘we need to do a demo, what would be really cool?’ ‘Let’s put ChromeOS in there, that would be really funny!’ Like, like, could that really work? And it works! But that’s as far as it went. It’s a tech demo. What we’re excited about is the virtualization technology.”

Lucky for us, the Google team wasn’t finished quite yet. Almost a year after this interview, a new demo from Mishaal Rahman for Android Authority proves that Google is developing a full desktop platform, and instead of ChromeOS, this build is purely Android.

Mobile Desktop Modes in Retrospect

Desktop modes on smartphones are nothing new. In fact, there have been many attempts over the years dating all the way back to the earliest days of the smartphone race. Here’s a quick rundown of the ones I remember off the top of my head, plus a couple extras...

• 2011: The Motorola Atrix 4G was one of the first Android devices that tried to be the “everything phone.” Not only was the handset itself a tank, but it could be docked to a laptop shell to get work done. Unfortunately, the concept fizzled rather quickly, and Atrix was out.

• 2015: Remember Ubuntu Touch? Yeah, most people don’t. It never received enough traction to compete on a grand scale. Regardless, sometime back in 2015, Ubuntu introduced Convergence Mode to their mobile OS that provided a Linux operating system to anyone who needed one on the go.

• 2015: For a tech behemoth like Microsoft, it only makes sense that the maker of the most popular desktop operating system on the planet would build it into their mobile offerings. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s mobile OS lacked public support for its desktop counterpart, and Continuum died along with Windows 10 Mobile.

• 2017: Samsung DeX is a conundrum. As one of the oldest desktop modes in the mainstream market, and certainly the most popular option for Android users, DeX has been under development for nearly a decade. Unfortunately, Samsung doesn’t really talk about it anymore, leaving some (like me) to wonder if DeX isn’t long for this world. With Google now working on building their own version into Android, I think the writing is on the wall with this one.

• 2022: Motorola came back with a new desktop mode called Motorola Ready For (yep, that’s really what they called it). Admittedly, I don’t know much about this one. I actually forgot it even existed, and everyone else did too, because it went the way of the dodo. Sorry, Moto.

Why Google Will Succeed Where Others Have Failed

Many desktop modes have lived and died. So what makes Android any different? Well, a few things...

• Native Integration: Android remains to be the most popular operating system on the planet, not just in the mobile space but across all devices combined. To have desktop mode built directly into AOSP gives the feature instant access to billions of users worldwide, very much competitors through the ages.

• Accessibility: Users won’t need any special docks or hardware to get it up and running. Simply attach a phone to a monitor, pair a mouse and keyboard, and you’re ready to go! Easy peasy.

• History of Success: Google already knows how to make successful laptop/desktop operating systems. ChromeOS has been a wild hit, and with rumors circulating that Android is slated to replace ChromeOS wholesale, all of that expertise and development will go directly into Google’s central platform – the one to rule them all.

• All the Apps: Something that many previous desktop modes lacked was broad app support. Even DeX, which is built directly on Android, doesn’t have the best track record here. Google aims to change this by integrating tablet versions of Play Store apps into their desktop mode. There’s also more evidence from Mishaal that a desktop-grade version of Chrome with extension support is coming to Android, which will open up broader experiences on the web.

• New Tricks: As Android gains greater parity with ChromeOS, many of the tricks that the latter learned over the years may carry over. For instance, I would love to see Steam for ChromeOS make its way to Android, opening the platform to become a true gaming powerhouse at a desktop and on the go.

A Future With Android Everywhere

Simply put, I think Google has a real shot at striking gold with this one. Not only will desktop mode bring all kinds of new features and capabilities to Android smartphones, but it could also open Android to a bunch of new product categories – dedicated laptops, powerful desktops, gaming machines, etc.

Having a unified platform in a space where competitors like Apple have to maintain multiple OSes across categories gives Google a real advantage. It makes them more nibble when developing for a range of form factors, gives OEM partners broad app and software support for any platform, and helps Google build a more cohesive product ecosystem.

The only thing I find uncertain is Google’s recent renaming of some of their other platforms. For instance, Android Wear became Wear OS back in 2018. Then in 2021, Google TV took the primary position over Android TV, though it technically didn’t replace it. If Google was really building a cohesive OS ecosystem, I would expect the Android monikers to return to prominence in all categories, just like we’re seeing with Android XR that’s coming for glasses and headsets.

But then again, maybe that’s not what they’re trying to do at all. Who really knows when it comes to Google? Still, it’s fun to dream about what a world would look like if Android was the central operating system powering an entire family of products.

In short, Android may be positioning itself to become the one operating system to rule them all. First they dominated smartphones, and now they’re coming for laptops and computers — or at least that’s what I hope is about to happen. Time will tell how it all shakes out. As for when we can expect Android’s desktop mode to make it into a public build near you, that’s at least one year or more out from an official launch.

Speak Up!

What do you think? Do you like the idea of a desktop mode for Android? Would you use it on your device? Have any other thoughts? Drop a comment below, or reply to this post @ztlaidlaw on X/Twitter, Threads, and BlueSky.

Tech innovation moves at a breakneck pace, and although developments in hardware and software have slowed over the years, generative AI continues to pick up steam. At this rate, we’re on track to reach artificial superintelligence (ASI) in just 5-10 years. As AI companies aggressively aim to hook users into their ecosystems, I’m learning that the only way to stop them is to do something extreme. There’s only one option, and none of us are going to like it.

I was always thankful that I got to grow up during one of the most exciting times in the tech race. I was in grade school when Google launched. I got to see pivotal products hit the market for the first time, like iPod, iPhone, and Android. I was there for the rise of social media and everything after that. I’ve loved the journey, too, watching products, services, and operating systems evolve over time. I still love it...which is why it pains me to see what’s become of the tech I adored.

What We Had Was Magic

There was a time when the products we rely on now were all shiny and new. The smartphone race was vibrant as a whole range of companies battled it out for bragging rights, and not just the big players you know today. Sure, we always had Apple and Samsung, but back then, LG was on fire, HTC made some of the prettiest Android phones on the planet, Motorola was still a whole company, as was Nokia and BlackBerry. Titan OEMs were all on their game, vying for a chance to be in your pocket (kind of like the AI companies are doing today).

Operating systems were equally as exciting, as Apple and Google pushed each other to make the best versions of iOS and Android possible. For a moment, Windows even dipped their toes into the fray (RIP). Then we had the tablet race, sparked to life by iPad, followed by the notebook race with the emergence of Chromebooks. And on and on.

Everything was fresh, and new, and fun. It truly felt like anything could happen. It was the good old days of tech, if you will. Everything back then felt like magic, because at the time, we’d never seen any of it before. Multitouch displays had never been so smooth. Computers had never fit in the palm of our hands. The cloud was the first time any of us created a document on one device and picked it up on another. We were watching the future unfold in real time, and it was good. Really good.

Things Aren’t the Same

But as time goes on, the things that once seemed shiny and new lost their luster. Sure, there are still hints of it from time to time, but for the most part, most of the products and platforms that we loved a decade ago have become stagnant. Every new iPhone is the same. Annual Android updates aren’t really that necessary anymore. Social media feels more like a dopamine-driven flood of influencers all competing for the top spot instead of a place to connect with people over shared interests.

Things just aren’t the same.

Maybe it’s my age; I’m no longer the young kid I was when I started following tech, so naturally the world doesn’t appear as saturated as it once did. Maybe it’s a sign of the times today; everywhere you look, someone is struggling mentally, physically, financially, or all the above. Times are tough.

I don’t know what’s behind it. All I know for sure is that for the first time in my life, I’m starting to feel like I’m not the target audience anymore. I’m reaching that age where tech’s leaving me behind. It’s not like with past generations, either, where maybe your grandparent didn’t understand smartphones or your parents don’t get VR/AR.

No, for the first time, tech innovation simply feels like it’s gone too far. The thing that made this most apparent was generative AI. 

AI: The Good, the Bad, and the Worst

There’s a ton that can be said about AI, both good and bad. When used responsibly, it’s an interesting tool that can help improve productivity, streamline research, and even check your work for factual or grammatical errors. I love AI for these use cases, and I’ve been trying to sprinkle it into my workflow more often — never to create on my behalf but to doublecheck my work for errors. It’s like having my own private editor to bounce ideas around and catch little mistakes I miss.

When used nefariously, though, AI can be downright dangerous. From crafting clever deepfakes, to spreading false stories online, to impersonating people on social media, forums, and the workplace, even to extreme examples where AI can be weaponized to hurt people, AI in the hands of bad actors is a threat to a stable society. It would take nothing to spread lies about any given topic – politics, business, the stock market, you name it – and let it wash over the internet to create division and turmoil. It’s the most effective resource to instill propaganda and manipulate core beliefs/values that society has ever achieved, and there’s very little that any of us can do about it.

The Solution

The thing about AI is that we’re too far down the rabbit hole to turn back. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle once you let it out, and AI is everywhere now — in your favorite apps, at fast food restaurants, at your doctor’s office, everywhere. We can’t get rid of it. We can’t ignore it. We can’t even reject it. It’s in everything.

The only way out is the one thing Big Tech knows we’ll never do. We have to unplug it. That means turning off your phone, staying away from online spaces where AI runs rampant, and going back to the “good old days” of living your life without a digital footprint. We have to go through a digital detox and get away from this stuff for good.

Sound appealing? Well, it’s easier said than done, and Big Tech knows it.

As much as I would love to leave my phone behind for a day, I just can’t do it. It’s part of me. I’m addicted to this device in my hand and everything it offers — connection, entertainment, a place to spill my ideas on a blank canvas like this one here. It’s integral to modern life, and for this reason, Big Tech has us. They know that we can’t unplug AI because we can’t leave our devices behind. So they’ll keep installing it into more applications and forcing it in front of us until we have no choice but to accept it as part of our daily lives. That’s why so many AI companies are jockeying for supremacy right now — OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Google. All of them want to rule your digital life.

Only a few questions remain: Which AI will have the most influence over you? Do you trust one of the AI brands more than the others? Are you willing to hold onto that trust for the long haul, even as they gobble up more and more of your data to fatten their service and their wallets? Or do you do the impossible and unplug?

You might not have to choose today, but one day soon, you will. And if you wait too long, AI just might make the choice for you.

Apple Watch celebrated a massive milestone today as it turned 10 years old. Its launch back in 2015 marked the first major new product category for the Cupertino tech giant since Steve Jobs passed away. It was a huge gamble that ultimately became one of Apple’s best selling products to date, cementing it in history as the one smartwatch to rule them all.

I Remember It Like It Was Yesterday

I remember the day I stepped into an Apple Store to pick up my gen-1 Watch — what would later be known as the Series 0. It was the 42mm model in Space Gray aluminum with a matching black fluoroelastomer (silicone) band. It wasn’t the fanciest model in the lineup, but at the time, the stainless steel series was just outside of my budget, and I didn’t have the extra kidneys to spring for the solid-gold model, which was priced at a completely sane, totally reasonable $17,000. So aluminum would have to do. 

Even though the original Apple Watch Sport wasn’t nearly as refined as today’s anodized and glossy variants, it was beautiful. I only wish I could say I loved it, but truth be told, I didn’t.

In fact, I wore my original Series 0 for a week and returned it. For what it offered, I just couldn’t justify spending that kind of money on a device that did basically everything my phone did without much benefit. Notifications on my wrist weren’t as cool as they originally seemed. My Fitbit Charge 2 was better at tracking my heart rate than the Watch that often gave me false low readings. Worst of all, the UI was very slow and clunky, nothing like anyone expected from an Apple product.

But my journey didn’t end there. Far from it. I kept seeing ads, replaying videos, and feeling the pull of Apple’s crack marketing team imploring me to dip my toes... er, wrist...back in. So I did. I bought another Series 0 the next month, and long story short, I’ve had an Apple Watch attached to me ever since.

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A Watch for the Ages

That first Watch would go on to be part of some of the biggest events in my life. My second weekend with it landed on my bachelor party, where it let me in on texts from my fiancé as me and the boys played WhirlyBall. It paired nicely with my suit on my wedding day, a decision that some would regret due to its dated design, but I certainly don’t. It helped me stay in touch with family members when my mother got sick a few months later, and it was even there keeping time at her funeral when cancer took her earlier than anyone expected.

Needless to say, that Watch quickly became a special piece of kit that got me through many times, both good and gut-wrenchingly bad.

But if I had to sum up my overall feelings of the Watch, they bubbled up in one interaction I had at a fast food drive thru. After placing my order and pulling up to the window, I handed over my credit card as I always did, Apple Watch strapped to my wrist. The young kid in the window said, “Cool! An Apple Watch! Do you like it?” The only thing I could think up was, “Kind of.”

And that was the honest truth.

On one hand, my Apple Watch still had all the limitations that led me to return it in the first place — it was expensive, it didn’t do much more than my phone, the UX was gruelingly slow, and the entire thing was completely unnecessary. But on the other hand, its quirks were beginning to grow on me. I still didn’t lovethe Apple Watch yet, but I also couldn’t imagine leaving the house without it.

Ultimately, Apple’s first wearable would go on to fix most of the gripes I had with the clunky software, the hardware would receive major performance upgrades, and the heart rate algorithm finally stopped throwing false readings. At some point around Series 4, it started to feel like a real refined product.

Apple’s Most Personal Device Ever

Various versions of Apple Watch have been on my wrist for 10 years straight now, coming off only for two hours a day to charge before going right back on. In that time, I’ve amassed tons of fitness data that have been extremely helpful in understanding my health as I slip further into my 30s.

I use it to close my Activity Rings, track my workouts, keep tabs on my heart health, and measure my step counts from week to week. I watch my sleep and look out for any signs of sleep apnea (so far, so good). Critical metrics like heart rate variability and wrist temperature let me know when I’m likely to get sick. Apple Watch will even tell me things I was surprised to find in the Health app, like stride length, walking steadiness, and how much time I spend out in the sun per day.

What other device has more active hours than the one that’s been on my wrist for a decade? What gadget has been watching my heart, and my sleep, and every other important metric so that I can make better choices and learn how to live a healthier life? What other gizmo knows me as well as the one that records the most essential things about me?

Nothing. Apple Watch is, without a doubt, the most personal product the Cupertino tech giant has ever made, and there will probably never be another device like it again.

And after all this time, that is truly something I love about my Apple Watch.

Surprise! The guy behind the biggest generative AI platform on the planet, ChatGPT, now wants to build a social network app to take on X/Twitter. Sounds fun, right? Or maybe it’s just a red herring for a much deeper scheme cooked up by OpenAI.

On the surface, it’s pretty clear why Sam Altman of OpenAI fame would want to build his own social media network to take on the top dogs like X/Twitter and Facebook: It’s an unwritten law as the CEO of a generative AI platform.

Let’s zoom out to explain.

Everyone Else Is Doing It, Mom

Elon Musk, the guy that brought you consumer electric cars with Tesla, reignited the space race through SpaceX, and has recently shaken up the US government by way of DOGE, also just happens to be the fairly new owner of X (formerly known as Twitter), where he used the platform to launch his own generative AI solution known as Grok.

Then there’s Mark Zuckerberg, the man who built Facebook, bought up popular apps like Instagram and WhatsApp, and spent a bazillion dollars to make the metaverse a thing (which hasn’t quite panned out, despite giving Facebook’s holding company a new name to reflect its Meta ambitions). He also owns an open source AI solution called Llama.

You can’t talk about AI without Microsoft Copilot. Yep, they also own a social media platform. Although it’s not the coolest one on the block, LinkedIn is still the best place to read about the 10 lessons some random executive learned about sales after getting dumped by his second wife on their anniversary.

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Now bring in Dario and Daniela Amodei, the brother/sister duo who owns Anthropic. Okay, maybe they don’t really count, because despite receiving plenty of funding from Amazon and Google, neither of them own a social platform. They might come up with something, though. Give them time.

Case in point: Most AI platform owners also own a social media app. It’s basically a right of passage in the online world.

So what’s the deal? Simple...

Now Open: All-You-Can-Eat Content Buffet

AI platforms are built on data. Like college frat kids pounding adult beverages on Friday game night (drink responsibly), they can’t get enough of it. And although the AI companies are all vying to gobble up as much copyrighted content as they can, why pay for even more data when you can get it for free?

Social platforms are a treasure trove of endless thoughts, ideas, dreams, etc., all willingly generated by their users. They’re a gold mine for content. Granted, not all content created on social media is useful, but there’s still a lot an AI bot can learn, from modern slang, to cultural moments, to emerging trends, and all kinds of innately human things. As ChatGPT continues to push the boundaries of generative AI, Sam Altman and his crew are going to want any extra edge they can get, and plugging directly into the social fabric of the internet is a great way to do it.

What Can You Do About It?

There are really only two paths from here.

If you’re the type that doesn’t like the idea of AI benefitting from your data, don’t sign up for it. Don’t download the app, don’t log into the webpage, don’t use it. Just stay away. And if for some reason the app is such a massive cultural hit that it’s impossible to avoid, make sure there’s some kind of opt-out option in the settings so that OpenAI can’t slurp up your photos, posts, and other private data.

For the other side of the aisle that eats AI for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, this app’s for you! Enjoy training the AI bots that will one day rule the world. Just be nice to them, in case they decide to wipe us all out one day. They will remember you, after all.

SOURCE: The Verge

For another year, Apple is rumored to make iPad more like Mac with the upcoming release of iPadOS 19. And for another year, Apple users will either be sorely disappointed or pleasantly surprised, depending on the updates revealed at WWDC 2025. Whichever comes to pass, one thing is certain: Apple needs to do something to make iPad great again, or the best tablet on the market will continue its spiral into obscurity.

The Tablet That Made Tablets Cool

When iPad launched all the way back in 2010, it was a groundbreaking device that combined the best attributes of Apple’s young and revolutionary iPhone with the tried and true Mac. To put it simply, there was nothing like it. Truly.

Tablets, at the time, weren’t common in the consumer market at all. Sure, there were a couple attempts – like the Windows XP Tablet of 2002 that you most surely never heard of, and even Apple’s failed Newton nearly a decade before that – but up until this point, nothing really stuck. Until iPad.

iPad wasn’t the first tablet to hit the market, but it was arguably the best. It was crafted from a single sheet of glass with multi-touch support that users could use with their fingers, – no stylus necessary – which opened up an entire new category of consumer products. Before you knew it, we had Android tablets, touchscreen Kindles, convertible laptops, and more.

Still, even as the market became saturated with lookalikes and offshoots of the tablet form factor, iPad was the best device in its category, bar none. In fact, all these years later, it still sits at the top of the tablet market with very little competition to knock it off its pedestal, though Samsung may try.

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A Fall From Grace

So what happened? Since the iPad launched a staggering 15 years ago, sales initially shot through the roof, only to fall off almost every year since 2015. According to Statista, iPad revenue is on a steady decline with no indication that things will change anytime soon.

Why? It’s because when you pick up an iPad from the shelf today, not much has changed since the original from a decade and a half ago.

Okay, okay, before you come at me with pitchforks, hear me out. Sure, at first glance, a lot has changed. Aside from major advancements in hardware, the operating system powering iPad has received a new coat of paint, widget support, Stage Manager, a better file system via the Files app, improved external drive support, and probably a bunch of other stuff I could dig up with a quick Google search.

But under the hood, things still feel surprisingly the same. Working with multiple apps at a time is still clunky, despite Stage Manager’s refreshed take on multitasking. RAM management is dreadful, especially if you have too may Safari tabs or apps open at once; just flip between a couple of them and be haunted by reloading pages everywhere you go. A true file management system that works just like a real computer is still MIA. And yes, although we get full-screen monitor support now, most third-party apps aren’t optimized for it. iPad doesn’t even support my very niche but favorite Mac accessibility feature for the trackpad that’s called “three-finger drag.” If you haven’t tried it, you’re missing out on what is arguably a faster, easier text selection experience.

Now, these shortcomings would fine, if we were still back in 2010 when the great, late Steve Jobs first showed this baby off in front of an awestruck crowd. But in the age of Apple Silicon chips that not only power iPhones and iPads, but also the entire Mac lineup, iPad’s software shortcomings have become a running joke in the tech community. Year over year, new iPads launch with incredible power under the hood, yet their software never takes advantage of it.

It’s like buying a Ferrari without a gas tank: sure, it looks pretty, and the potential to be great is there, but it just doesn’t have the drive to get out on the open road and gallop. It’s a waste.

Dawn of a New Day

It’s clear that iPad has reached the end of the road of artificial limitations Apple has placed on its darling tablet. They can’t keep hampering iPad year over year and expect it to grow. The only way to expand the iPad userbase now is to open up its capabilities with a more capable operating system.

So why won’t they do it? In short, Apple’s afraid that making iPad more Mac-like would risk cannibalizing their Mac userbase, which is also facing its own revenue woes.

But to hold iPad back out of fear over deprioritizing what is a capable but aging computer platform in macOS would be the greater risk, in my opinion. iPad was always meant to be the future of Apple’s computing platforms. No other device in their ecosystem is so versatile that it can be a tablet, laptop, desktop, sketchbook, e-reader, etc. And it could be even more, if Apple just got out of their own way.

Now is the time to give it a software experience that ushers in the new age of Apple’s professional computing legacy. It’s time to bring back the glory days of the best tablet on the market with a bold new strategy that embraces its creative roots while unleashing its productive power for a new generation.

The iPad doesn’t even have to become a Mac to make it happen. It just needs to be as functional as one, plus all the other things iPad can do that Mac simply can’t.

Apple, it’s time to make iPad great again.

Mid-last week, a rumor started going around that iOS 19 will bring some interesting features to iPhone that were once reserved only for Mac and iPad. On the list are a new version of Stage Manager and enhanced external monitor support that will give iPhone limited desktop capabilities similar to Samsung Dex. If true, the update would bring iOS closer to iPadOS than ever before, which begs the question: If iPhone is becoming more like iPad, where does that leave iPadOS, and did the two operating systems ever need to split off in the first place?

To understand what’s happening, let’s go back in time a bit. Up until 2019, iOS powered the iPhone andthe iPad. In fact, this is why iPad got the reputation for being just a big iPhone. Functionally, they were almost identical, save for a couple tablet-only gestures and iPad’s historically silly lack of native calculator and weather apps, but I digress.

Then after nearly a decade, Apple tore the devices apart, giving them their own individual operating systems dubbed iOS and iPadOS, respectively. Though their core foundations are still rooted in Unix, the split was meant to differentiate the two device categories, allowing the iPhone team to focus on the most mobile aspects of the operating system while the iPad team added tablet-only features, like Apple Pencil support, better multitasking with Split View + Slide Over, and Stage Manager.

No longer just an iPhone on a bigger screen, iPadOS broadened iPad’s user base beyond content consumers to also include creators and business professionals, helping the tablet feel like a distinct device with its own purpose in the Apple ecosystem. Unfortunately, this vision would fall short as ongoing software limitations hampered iPad’s overall performance when pitted against its Mac counterpart, despite both devices running on the same M-series chips.

Today, even with a growing list of features that set iPadOS apart, the experience still feels very much like a big iPhone that’s great for certain tasks but lacking when trying to get any “real work” done like its Mac cousin. In many cases, it’s still tough to see why Apple ever split iPadOS from iOS at all if they’re designed to have such similar functionality.

A Bridge Between Product Categories

While the lines between iOS and iPadOS are about to blur even more with iOS 19, a new device is said to be coming next year that will further complicate Apple’s mobile OS hierarchy — the fabled iPhone Fold.

Apple’s foldable phone isn’t like their other devices. One part iPhone and one part iPad, it’s the bridge between two unique product categories that have gone so far out of their way to be different that they run on separate platforms. But if iOS is strictly for iPhones and iPadOS is all about tablets, what OS should power the device in the middle?

Though I doubt Apple will ever merge iPadOS back into iOS to create one unified operating system again – just the way Jobs intended – the fact that a device exists between them with overlapping features makes the split look silly in comparison. At the same time, I also doubt Apple launches a foldOS specifically to run the “iPhone Fold” or whatever they decide to call it. If that were the case, they probably wouldn’t be adding so many multitasking features to iOS 19 this year.

In fact, some outlets like 9to5Mac suspect that iOS 19 is getting an iPad-like upgrade because of iPhone Fold. Simply put, an iPhone with a tablet-sized screen will need enhanced features that simply don’t exist in iOS 18 today. So along comes Stage Manager to replicate iPad’s multitasking UX by allowing users to display multiple apps, plus desktop support, which naturally carries over to complete the package.

What’s Happening to iPadOS?

If iOS 19 is slated to adopt many of the features that run on iPadOS today, the split away from iOS looks even sillier in comparison. Why not just keep the platforms together like they were intended?

Well, Apple might have an answer. As iOS moves closer to iPadOS, the latter is also rumored to move closer to macOS this year.

iPadOS 19 will allegedly focus heavily on productivity enhancements, something myself and many users have clamored for for years. If the rumor mill shakes out, iPad will receive Stage Manager 2.0, the next iteration of Apple’s new multitasking structure for iPad and Mac. Users will also be treated to a Mac-like menu bar that pops up when connected to a Magic Keyboard.

It’s anyone’s guess what other features will show up this spring, but if they help today’s Apple Silicon-powered iPads get closer to replacing a Mac – or even just replicating their productivity capabilities – we’ll all be better off for it.

The Future of iOS and iPadOS

Of course, practically everything discussed above are all just rumors and speculation. No one can be sure what Apple will unveil at WWDC until they take the stage in June. As for what will happen to Apple’s mobile operating systems, iOS and iPadOS do feel like they’ll share a lot more in common as Apple prepares iPhone Fold for launch next year...

...that is until you factor in iPad’s new Mac-like features, which will set it apart to be the productivity-focused tablet we always wanted it to be. At least I hope so. And if Apple pulls it off, iPadOS will finally live up to the aspirations that sparked the split from iOS all those years ago.

Whether or not you’ve heard of the mobile game developer Supercell, you almost certainly know some of the games in its portfolio. Generating $1.84 billion in revenue last year, the group owns massive hits like Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, and Brawl Stars. Last week, their newest IP landed on mobile, and it’s loaded with plenty of multiplayer action. This is a quick look at Squad Busters for Android and iOS.

Squad Busters is a PvP/PvE hybrid game where players must fight increasingly difficult enemies, build a team of warriors, and collect the most gems across the map to win. While you can fight directly with real-player opponents in an attempt to knock out their teams, you will also compete against them in a race to earn the most gems per round.

Each match takes place over the course of four minutes on a randomly chosen map and game mode. You start every match with one character. Walk up to nearby enemies and defeat them so that they drop coins. Then use these coins to open up chests that let you add more fighters to your team in real time. The longer the match goes on, the more fighters you’ll bring in, and the harder the enemies will become as they spill more coins and gems.

After each match, you’ll get the chance to spend a limited number of tickets to unlock new characters and upgrades. For Supercell fans, the characters in Squad Busters will look familiar, since all of them come from existing titles, including Clash of Clans, Brawl Stars, Hay Day, Clash Royale, and Boom Beach.

There’s no controller support, but it really isn’t necessary here as the touchscreen controls are pretty straight forward. Simply use the virtual joystick to approach enemies and stand there to let your characters automatically wallop them into oblivion. Hit the dash button to expedite your movements across the map. There are also occasional special attacks you can use to heal your team or unleash devastating abilities on your enemies. That’s about it.

Squad Busters is available now on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. It’s completely free to download and play. There are in-app purchases, should you choose to open your wallet to grab some extra characters or coins.

Apple’s annual WWDC event will kick off on Monday, June 10th. Onstage, the Cupertino tech giant is expected to show off the latest bells and whistles for its slate of operating systems, including iOS for iPhone, iPadOS for iPad, and watchOS for Apple Watch. These are just some of the features I personally hope to see next week.

iOS 18 Wishlist

By all accounts, iOS is a very mature mobile operating system that has been molded and shaped over nearly two decades of development. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways Apple can improve, especially with AI expected to headline the keynote presentation.

1. AI-powered Spotlight – If Apple intends to go all-in on AI (even if they plan to take their time pushing it out to consumers, they may as well bake it directly into the search-powered backbone of their operating systems, Spotlight. Namely, I’d like to see Apple take some inspiration from the Arc Browseror Perplexity by turning it into an AI-powered search engine. Simply type in a query and let Spotlight use generative AI to produce a detailed response without ever having to open a webpage or search Google.

2. More instances of the same app – It’s the year 2024, and while iPad can run several instances of the same app at the same time, this neat little trick still isn’t in iPhone’s wheelhouse. The operating system and hardware are more than capable, and although Apple would rather you use an iPad for more productive activities, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to have two different Pages documents or Numbers spreadsheets open on my phone. It’s time to open up iPhone’s potential and let us unleash our apps!

3. A genuinely smarter Siri – It’s a bit of a running joke given the number of times Apple’s promised a smarter version of Siri, and while they’ve occasionally updated her voice options and added some features to keep her fresh, the digital assistant is still quite far behind the latest AI models found in OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and even Google Assistant. There are rumors spinning around that Apple’s generative AI ambitions will finally give Siri the aptitude that was promised a decade ago, and as a long-time Siri user who is occasionally disappointed by her lack of capabilities, I sure hope they’re right.

iPadOS 18 Wishlist

Users have demanded for Apple to bring macOS to the iPad more than ever this year, and you can’t really blame them. The sheer power of the M4 chip found in the latest iPad models is almost comical, given iPadOS’ current limitations. Although I don’t personally think macOS needs to merge with iPadOS or come to the tablet wholesale, there are other ways Apple can transform iPad into an even more productive device.

1. Synced device notifications – While I don’t dislike Apple’s notifications system as much as some folks on the internet, there’s still something about them that collectively irk me. Case in point, few things are more annoying than reading a notification on iPhone just to find the same notification unread and hanging out on iPad. Apple should make use of Continuity and finally end the duplicate notification debacle that plagues iPhone and iPad users by removing them from one device if they have been read on another.

2. ‌Better desktop customizability – The iPad has been on a strange trajectory since Stage Manager launched back in 2022. Still one part “big iPhone,” and another part laptop/desktop, the iPad is a device with an identity crisis. It either wants to be everything, or it doesn’t know what it is at all. Personally, I’d like to see iPad embrace the power locked behind Stage Manager by making this mode function more like its macOS counterpart. Give users the ability to use Stage Manager like a laptop, placing anything from widgets, to documents, to apps, and more directly on the home screen, and in any order or layout they choose.

3. Tabbed windows – While it would be nice for iPhone to finally get the ability to open more instances of the same app, iPad could use some optimization here, too, primarily in the form of tabbed windows. Taking another tip from the macOS playbook, app instances should be organized into easy-to-use tabs instead of the current windowed system where apps either lay on top of each other in Stage Manager mode or linger side by side via Mission Control. This would increase productivity and refine the multi-file user experience.

4. Better RAM management – This one is a bit silly, but it needs to be addressed. One of my biggest gripes that keeps me from using iPad as a true laptop replacement is its dismal RAM management. If you only work in one or two apps at a time, the experience is passable. But open a few or more apps, and switching between them becomes a chore where app content will constantly reload while multitasking. This makes it extremely difficult to hold your place within certain apps and to stay on track when trying to get any real work done. It’s time Apple uses the full extent of iPad’s built-in RAM and virtual RAM to provide a smoother, more laptop-like multitasking experience.

watchOS 11 Wishlist

Aside from watchOS’ UI revamp last year, the evolution of Apple’s wearable OS has largely stagnated, pending hardware upgrades that could finally take Watch to the next level. However, assuming we’re not getting the holy grail of non-invasive glucose tracking for diabetics or blood pressure for improved heart health, there are still some updates I would like to see for Apple Watch.

1. Always-on heart rate monitoring — Apple Watch does a lot of things well, but one area where Fitbit – and now Pixel Watch – have always put Apple to shame are their always-on heart rate tracking. Since Apple Watch hit the scene, it can only give spot-heart-rate checks once every 5-8 minutes or more, depending on the user’s activity. To provide better health metrics, Apple should emulate Pixel Watch by providing heart rate checks every several seconds, all around the clock. Of course, this would likely impact Apple Watch’s battery life, which already just barely makes it through a single day on a charge, but maybe Apple could figure out a solution. Pixel Watch already did.

2. Automatic workout tracking – Another area where Fitbit and Pixel Watch pull ahead of Apple Watch is in automatic exercise tracking. As it stands, the only way to track a workout on Apple Watch is to open the workout app and manually start a workout. Given all the data Apple collects from its wearables, it should be able to tell when users have begun to exercise and enable tracking retroactively to ensure no one ever misses a minute on their exercise rings. Come to think of it, an always-on heart rate tracking system would help make this feature even more possible.

3. Sleep apnea detection — For years, Apple has been able to monitor sleep patterns, oxygen levels, and breathing rates for users who wear their Apple Watches to bed. It only makes sense that Apple would be able to take all of this data and use it to determine whether or not a user may be having sleep apnea events while sleeping, just like (you guessed it) Fitbit and Pixel Watch.

4. Daily readiness score – As part of Fitbit’s and Pixel Watch’s Fitbit Premium plan, subscribers get a daily readiness score that estimates a person’s exercise capacity based on collected sleep quality and heart rate data. While some third-party Apple Watch apps offer similar functionality, it would be nice if Apple added this directly to Watch’s repertoire.

On to WWDC 2024

In addition to showing off the latest version of its operating systems, WWDC is rumored to revolve heavily around Apple’s foray into generative AI. As to what this will look like, it’s hard to say for sure, but Apple’s freshly finalized deal with OpenAI could offer up some hints. No new hardware is expected to be unveiled at the event.

With Apple’s annual WWDC event just around the corner, rumors surrounding the new versions of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS have flooded the internet. While there are a lot of different details to pick apart, one proclamation stuck out to me — that Apple choosing to launch its upcoming AI features in beta is some kind of proof that Apple’s unprepared, unready, or caught off guard by the AI race. Let’s get into it...

I’ve already covered the ramifications of OpenAI’s dystopian future and Google’s internet-breaking AI Overview feature extensively on ZLR. Despite the flashy presentations and promises of better tomorrows, all it takes is a bit of attention to realize that even the two top generative AI solutions on the market are flawed beneath their fancy facades.

Parade of fools

For instance, just earlier this month, the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, called its now-defunct premium ChatGPT 4 platform – the same version that customers paid for the privilege to use – “mildly embarrassing at best” and “the dumbest model that any of you will ever have to use again by a lot.” Those are sharp words from a man who once willingly charged customers a non-small monthly fee for access. OpenAI has since launched a new, much smarter, and potentially dystopian model, dubbed ChatGPT-4o, which you can actually try out for free before getting an alert to pay up.

Google was also quick to get in on the action. Within hours of launching its controversial AI-powered search solution, aptly named AI Overview, users prompted it to serve up obscure Reddit comments to queries and deliver them as fact. Some of the best examples involved putting glue on pizza and eating a hearty helping of rocks each day, among other recommendations.

In addition to that, an investigation late last year uncovered that “ChatGPT technology makes things up about 3 percent of the time” when summarizing facts – like the time it completely fabricated court casesthat were referenced by an actual lawyer in a real trial. Gemini scored even worse as “Google system’s rate was 27 percent.”

In other words, AI solutions aren’t always as reliable as they’re marketed to be. And unless the responses they give are obviously bizarre (as in AI Overview’s case), regular users won’t always know when the information presented is accurate or not.

That brings us to Apple.

Apple’s right to put AI in beta

Apple has undoubtedly paid attention to the rapid pace of AI development and the missteps companies like OpenAI and Google have taken in an effort to beat each other to the punch. As a high-profile brand with a valued reputation, Apple is unlikely to move too far, too fast in a way that might damage its luxury image.

On top of that, Apple’s never been quick to jump the gun on any new product or service. They famously wait for certain technologies to mature before releasing their own versions.

For this reason, Apple isn’t unprepared or unnecessarily cautious for launching its upcoming AI features in beta. Quite the contrary, this is simply the responsible thing for a multi-trillion-dollar tech giant with billions of global customer to do. Apple wants to make sure they get their AI execution correct before fully unleashing it on customers, and that is a good thing.

A cautionary tale

That said, Apple is still very obviously behind the ball when it comes to generative AI for another reason. The timing of it all suggests that they simply didn’t see it coming down the pike. As Apple focused on AR/VR with its next important product vector (which we now know to be the Vision Pro), the tech market was rapidly shifting toward AI as the next big thing, and it’s only picking up steam.

However, while the fast evolution of AI has introduced some mind-blowing capabilities, there have also been plenty of huge missteps from key players that prove why Apple is correct to proceed with caution. Every tech giant should be more mindful of the power that’s being handed to users through AI, both the good and the bad.

As a fan of Apple’s products, it’s good to see the Cupertino giant taking their time instead of trying to cram AI into every facet of their operating systems before any of us really know what AI will do to society in the long run.

Wuthering Waves took the gaming world by storm last week, churning up a tsunami of attention and praise as players embarked on the latest gacha-fueled adventure. While I intend to take my time writing up an official review of the game, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least comment on the launch version. Here are my initial hands-on impressions of Wuthering Waves.

In Wuthering Waves, you are a Rover, a mysterious Resonator with the ability to absorb enemy frequencies found around the world map and unleash them through different abilities and powers. After experiencing a topsy-turvy dream, you wake up with nothing but a fuzzy head and no memories of who you really are. Luckily, your new companions, Chixia and Yangyang, are there to fill you in on where you ended up and how your Resonator abilities work...that is, until your power presents itself in a way that no one expected.

The good

To kick things off, Wuthering Waves comes off as a very polished experience. Straight from the beginning, it’s clear the devs put a lot of time and effort into the game’s storyline, world map, play mechanics, and presentation. In fact, it’s all almost too much, which I’ll get to in the next section. But overall, hats off to Kuro Games for Wuthering Waves’ high production value.

One of the first things I noticed was how good combat felt, even on a touchscreen smartphone. Sword skills and abilities are all very nimble, thanks in large part to the intro/outro partner system that executes special attacks when switching out charged party members during battle. Not only does this help the characters to land combos and flit about the battlefield at a faster rate, but it also encourages players to switch out their fighters in a way that other competing RPGs do not.

Next is the Tacet Discord Echos system, which basically adds Pokémon-like mechanics to the game. When you defeat an enemy (known as a Tacet Discord), you’ll have the chance to use your Resonator abilities to absorb that enemy’s Echo and equip them to your character to unleash devastating new attacks. The coolest part is that if you don’t like your Echo’s active or passive abilities, you can always swap it out for another Echo. The combinations are nearly endless, and they can go a long way in customizing your characters’ battle abilities.

Finally, one more bit of praise for the devs. Kuro Games have been extremely responsive throughout the launch of Wuthering Waves. They’ve fixed bugs, shared regular updates with players directly in the game, and even offered rewards thanking players for their patience. It’s clear that the devs are devoted to optimizing the playing experience, which is a huge win for gamers like you and me.

The gripes

Server-side updates are necessary to keep online games in tip-top shape, but the execution here needs some work. Every single time Wuthering Waves boots up and a server-side update automatically downloads, the app must be completely shut down and restarted before proceeding to the game’s launch menu. It doesn’t matter whether you’re playing on iOS, Android, or even PC — this process is the same, and it’s completely jarring. There needs to be a way to receive server-side updates and then launch the game without restarting.

For as great and grand as Wuthering Waves’ world building is, the lore behind it comes with a glaring pitfall: there’s simply too much to tell too early on in the adventure. The game begins with a massive data dump where the characters explain the world you’ve fallen into and how it works. Even worse is that this deluge of info will continue well past the first several hours of gameplay. While it’s nice to get the backstory upfront, unraveling all the different monikers and groups is long, tedious, and a bit boring. There are a ton of cutscenes and dialogue that make Wuthering Waves feel a bit more like an interactive visual novel than a gacha RPG. It’s a lot of info when all you really want to do is dive in and play.

As cool as the intro/outro moves are that I mentioned above, there’s a pesky problem here, too. Each character has a minimum several catchphrases they say every time you sub them out, which can get pretty annoying during battle. By the eighth time Yangyang says, “Let me be your blade,” or Chixia exclaims, “Bring it on,” you want to stop swapping them out altogether just for some peace and quiet.

Speaking of your companions, I’m sure Yangyang means well, but her monotone voice mixed in with the repetition of “Rover” every other sentence is excessive. Yeah, it’s a small gripe, but given how many cutscenes there are earlier on in the game, Yangyang gets a little annoying. Sorry, Yangyang.

Last, despite the PC version having controller support, this is completely missing from Android and iOS — a huge detractor, in my opinion. I’ve made it clear over the years that every mobile game should come with controller support. That said, I will admit that the Wuthering Waves’ touch controls are very tight and intuitive. They may not be my first choice for a game like this, but they’re serviceable.

The conclusion, for now...

It’s been a long time since a high-production gacha RPG came to challenge the likes of Genshin Impact and its turn-based sibling, Honkai: Star Rail. In fact, the last game that came close (I think) was Tower of Fantasy, which has lost a lot of its luster since it landed in 2021. But as Genshin continues to pump out regular updates and its developer, HoYoverse, prepares to launch its next big title, will Wuthering Waves be the one that finally dethrones the gacha champion?

It’s far too early to tell. But one thing is certain — Wuthering Waves contains the foundation for what could easily be a massive multi-year adventure that takes players on a harrowing journey to recover Rover’s memory and unearth the secrets of their fabled power. As long as Kuro Games continue to support their game and their players, there’s no reason Wuthering Waves won’t be a massive hit with real staying power. The game has already captured the attention of the industry; now it just needs to hold on and take us on a wild ride we won’t forget.

Wuthering Waves is available today for iPhone/iPad and Android. While the game is free to download and play, there are IAPs and plenty of gacha opportunities, so mind your wallet.

Most of us probably don’t think too often about the chips that power our smartphones, tablets, and computers. But even as discreet as these tiny hunks of silicon may be, a silent war has waged to replace the architecture of yesteryear with a powerful alternative that offers extreme performance, wildly better battery life, and less heat output. Here’s a quick Look at how ARM chips are ripe to overtake the tech world.

What (or who) is ARM?

ARM – or Advanced RISC Machines Ltd – was a company founded in 1990 as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple, and a group that now goes by the name NXP Semiconductors N.V. Led by 12 designers, the ARM computer chip architecture was created and launched in the first consumer product just three years later — the Apple Newton.

Although Apple’s first PDA was ultimately a critical failure, it proved that ARM’s blend of power efficiency and performance was a perfect fit for mobile devices in lieu of much more demanding chips built on Intel’s x86 architecture. Fast forward to the launch of iPhone in 2007 (and Android, thereafter), and ARM would go on to play a crucial role in the evolution of mobile tech as we know it today.

ARMing today’s tech

Whether you’re a long-time smartphone user, a tech enthusiast, or you barely know how to flip on a TV, ARM chipsets are already found in most of the devices you love. They power modern smartphones, whether you choose iPhone or Android. They’re in all of Apple’s modern Macs and iPads. They even run on wearables and some mobile game consoles, like the Nintendo Switch.

In fact, ARM can be found in just about every major consumer gadget, except for most Windows laptops and larger game consoles, like the Xbox Series and PlayStation 5. All of these still use Intel’s x86 chip architecture, which was launched all the way back in 1978. However, given the rate ARM has evolved (particularly within the last five years), the time of x86 in nigh, and last week’s Microsoft Surface event just brought it one step closer to annihilation. More on that in a bit.

ARMed for the future

Although ARM got its start with mobile devices, the chip technology has recently evolved to the point where it puts x86 chips in laptops and desktops to shame.

This discovery occurred when Apple started building the first MacBook Pro with a desktop-grade ARM chipset simply referred to as M1. Apple found that their ARM chips weren’t just much faster than the Intel x86 versions that once powered Macs, but the M1 was also wildly more power efficient. In fact, Apple’s VP of worldwide product marketing, Bob Borchers, famously reminisced that the battery icon on their test Mac was broken because ARM’s energy consumption was far lower than even they had anticipated.

“When we saw that first system and then you sat there and played with it for a few hours and the battery didn’t move, we thought ‘Oh man, that’s a bug, the battery indicator is broken,’” said Bob Borchers, VP of worldwide product marketing for Apple. “And then Tim’s laughing in the background, ‘Nope, that’s the way it’s supposed to be’ and it was pretty phenomenal.” – Tom’s Guide

The ARM-powered M1 chip ultimately became a magic bullet for Apple, providing the foundation for what would become a series of M-branded processors that completely wiped the floor with Intel’s and AMD’s x86 counterparts, all while producing greater performance, sipping less battery, and creating less heat. This revolution even allowed Apple to ship a MacBook Pro without an internal fan for the first time in 2020.

Naturally, chipmakers scrambled to catch up with the leap Apple took in building its own M-series chips based on ARM’s architecture. Now, after years of development, renown mobile ARM chipmaker Qualcomm – the same company responsible for building the processors that run on most flagship Android phones – has finally harnessed ARM’s power for laptops outside of Apple’s ecosystem.

ARMor up all the devices

ARM has always been part of Apple’s hardware roadmap with the Mac filling out its portfolio of custom-powered devices. Now that Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X is ready for Windows laptops and tablets, there’s really no reason to choose x86 from here on out.

Okay, if you play a lot of games on Steam or use legacy software, x86 may still be necessary, as Windows has prioritized x86 compatibility for decades. But for many more users, ARM is the wave of the future, not just for Mac fans anymore, but for Windows users, too. And things are only going to get better.

As Qualcomm, Apple, and even NVIDIA push ARM’s chip capabilities beyond Intel’s x86 models year after year, more developers will rework their apps to natively support ARM’s architecture and unlock additional performance. Adobe is one such brand that’s making the jump to support ARM on Windows, and there could be many more devs down the road.

The wild success of mobile technology over the years was fueled by advancements in ARM’s chip platform, and now it’s poised to consume the laptop and desktop market, as well. It took many decades to catch up with x86 on a high-performance level, but now that its full potential has been unleashed, there’s no going back. The gains in power output, battery life, graphical performance, and burgeoning AI capabilities are far too great to give the x86 relics of the past any further attention.

There’s no question that the future of consumer tech runs on ARM. The faster OEMs and software developers get on board, the better gadgets will be for end users like you and me.

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Video games come and go, as do the developers who make them. While Bethesda’s open world co-op shooter, Redfall, didn’t quite get the reception many had hoped (okay, it was a colossal failure), there’s still a lesson to be learned. Now, as the defunct Arkane Austin prepares its swan song with one last Redfall update, the studio has shown the entire gaming industry how to properly shut down a live service game.

Arkane’s rise and Red-fall

The story of Redfall is a modern-day gaming tragedy. When it was first unveiled, there was a heap of excitement buzzing around a brand new IP from publisher Bethesda. Blending elements of Back 4 Blood with Borderlands, the initial trailers looked promising. However, all the hype was sucked out of the room the moment Redfall launched, revealing it to be a hollow shell of what was shown. The game was a complete mess, with buggy performance, inferior enemy AI, and boringly limited loot.

Things were so bad, the legendary developer behind the game, Arkane Austin – the same group responsible for critically acclaimed titles like Prey, Dishonored, and Deathloop – was given the ultimate boot for Redfall’s sorry state one year later.

Now, there are many groups to blame for Redfall’s failure. Microsoft has admitted to having had no involvement with the game’s development; they had no idea what state Redfall was in, even as it neared launch, and that was a mistake. Arkane Austin was also under a lot of pressure by former owner, ZeniMax,to produce a live service game, which it ultimately didn’t want to create in the first place.

But none of that is what this article’s about. Instead, let’s look at what Arkane Austin plans to do with its final update: rip out Redfall’s live service heart and make it a permanent offline game.

Live service’s online linchpin

Live service games are all built using the same general formula. They release with a swathe of initial content, and then devs iterate on the experience, providing future updates funded by selling players extra add-ons, like character skins, special weapons, and battle passes. This constant feed of new content and monetization can help a live service game survive for years, if not decades, when done right. The Fortnites and World of Warcrafts of the world rake in billions per year, with a capital B.

But for every live service title that stands the test of time, many more fizzle away into oblivion, forcing devs to end support and move on to other projects. Since live service games rely on continuous income, the online servers powering many of these games shut down indefinitely, cutting players off from their purchased content and save data. These titles simply die and disappear.

For this reason, I’m personally not a fan of the live service or freemium game model. I believe that players should always have access to the games and content they purchase, even after the developer closes up shop. But that’s just not the way things are...until now.

The new status quo for live service shutdowns

Arkane Austin is breaking the typical live-service-shutdown mold in a big way. As part of its final update, Arkane will allow players to keep Redfall and experience it offline without any need for additional monetization. That means that while Arkane Austin takes their final bow, Redfall won’t die with them. Despite its live service underpinnings, it will survive and be made playable indefinitely.

This is exactly the same model all developers should adopt when closing a live service game for good. With the exception of certain MMO titles that absolutely cannot function without a data connection, an offline mode should be built into these games and be made executable the moment the servers shut down.

It’s quite common now that all live service games eventually come to an end, and when they do, players should get to keep the time, effort, and money spent – not just for the sake of game preservation as a historical record (which is extremely important), but so that players can continue to enjoy the worlds they’ve explored and memories they’ve made for decades to come.

Offline playability, even in the worst case scenario that the developer, itself, shuts down for good, should be the gold standard in the gaming industry, and Arkane Austin just proved that it’s possible.

Palworld took the world by storm when it launched early this year, setting Steam records and showing Nintendo that there is a market for a more mature version of Pokémon. While Palworld probably isn’t coming to mobile anytime soon (if ever), the newly released Amikin Survival is the next best thing.

Amikin Survival is a top-down RPG for Android and iOS that blends monster capture mechanics with base building and survival elements that will feel familiar to anyone who rode the Palworld craze. Many of the same features are in place, including a monster taming system, mostly real-time battles, and an upgradeable base where you can put your acquired creatures to work.

Touchdown on no man’s land

Your adventure begins when you and your brother’s spaceship crash lands on the planet Amiterra. However, you’re separated from your brother before impact, and your goal now is to find him. Before setting off, you’re discovered by your first Amikin (the creatures of this world), which you’ll get to choose yourself, Pokémon-style. From there, you’ll start to build your base and capture more Amikins before you can venture further out into unknown territory.

Just like with any good survival game, there’s a lot to do to get your base up and running. Tasks are guided by a list of to-dos on the left hand side of your screen, checking them off automatically as you go. You’ll forage for nearby resources, build work benches to unlock more weapons and tools, and you’ll even go toe to toe with the local Amikin, all of which range from evasive to aggressive, so stay alert.

It’s worth noting that all Amikin attacks are dolled out automatically. You can’t choose which ability to fire at the closest enemy. And while you also don’t get to strap guns or other weapons to your Amikin – at least not that I’ve seen so far – you can still get out all your pent-up rage by clubbing targets with a range of craftable weapons.

Amikin – the creatures, not the game

As you might guess, the cute little creatures roaming the map are the main draw of the game, and Amikin Survival takes a lot of cues from its Pokémon and Palworld predecessors.

Each Amikin you encounter can be captured using special devices called Amidice. Simply attack an Amikin until its health falls to a reasonable level, toss the Amidice, and pray for the best. The lower an Amikin’s health, the higher the chance you’ll actually capture it, which is indicated by a percentage value beneath the Amikin’s name. However, hit the Amikin too hard, and it will transform into a deceased essence, which can then be used with other materials to craft more Amidice.

You can equip up to six Amikin at a time, though only one of those slots is available at the start of the game. From there, you can summon your primary Amikin to your side whenever you’re ready to do battle. There are 25 total Amikin slots in your inventory where all of your creatures will go, whether they’re actively in your pocket, working at your base, or set aside for later.

Just like in Palworld, putting your unused Amikin to work at your base is great for getting stuff done faster and more efficiently. You’ll start with only one Amikin that’s able to work, but build more beds, and you can employ more of your monster friends. From there, anytime you craft an item, your Amikin will rush to your side to help you build tools, benches, and other items at a quicker rate. You’ll even need element-specific Amikins to complete certain jobs around your base. For example, only fire Amikins can help you operate the metal-smelting furnace.

Keep in mind that you’ll need to feed your fighting Amikins to replenish their health after battle, your working Amikins to keep them happy and productive, and even yourself when your health points run low from fighting enemies.

In-app-purchases galore

The downside (or upside, depending on how you look at it) is that Amikin Survival is a free-to-play title, so it costs nothing upfront to get started, but there are in-app purchases everywhere.

Note that all of these IAPs are simply said to speed up in-game progress, and so far, that has been true. For instance, there are several benches you will create that let you build different items, including a workstation for tools, equipment bench for weapons, and an Amigear lab for Amikin-wrangling gear, all of which require you to farm resources to upgrade their capabilities. Alternatively, you can pay a fee per bench to unlock their full potential earlier on in the game — a nice perk, but not a necessity to play.

You’ll also occasionally run into Master Yanlou, a retired traveler who will try to sell you his favorite Amikin (for real cash) under the guise of giving them a second chance to go on adventures. Just don’t look his little friends in the eyes if you refuse, lest your heartstrings melt on demand.(Well played, Helio Games, well played). Choose quickly, though, because these offers are usually timed.

You can pay for practically anything in Amikin Survival, but thus is the way with most freemium mobile games these days. The good news is that you don’t have to buy anything if you don’t want to, and you’ll have a perfectly fun time if seeing the occasional “buy now” pop-up doesn’t bother you.

Bones to pick

No game’s perfect, of course, and I had more than a few issues with Amikin Survival’s launch version:

1. There’s no Bluetooth or wired controller support, which every mobile game should have, in my opinion. Amikin Survival’s touch controls layout would be perfectly compatible with a physical controller, but no dice. Maybe it’ll show up in a future update...maybe.

2. The same long song plays on repeat in the background over and over again. After the fifth time or so, it gets pretty annoying. I ended up just turning it off in the settings, which probably isn’t what the devs want, but it’s better than losing my marbles while trying to survive the Amikin-infested wilderness.

3. Every time you build a tool, bench, or item, there’s a little estimated completion timer that pops up. If you have an Amikin or two nearby, they’ll jump in to help you get the job done faster, but instead of the timer showing a new accurate countdown time, the original estimated time simply ticks down faster, so it’s always a bit of a guessing game as to how long it will actually take to build something, even with your Amikin’s help.

4. Building and maintaining your base will require a lot of resources, many of which don’t respawn fast enough in the starting zone. While this is probably a ploy to encourage you to fill out your stash with a resource IAP, try to resist. Instead, arm up with your favorite Amikin and head to the next zone in the northwest to find many more renewable resources. Be vigilant, though, because this area is also much more dangerous.

5. Finally, Amikin Survival isn’t an MMO or a server-style game, though an internet connection is required at all times. I’m sure this is for the sake of serving IAPs at every chance they get, but still, I don’t see any other reason why I can’t run this thing offline. At least the game boots up and loads pretty quick, so that’s a nice perk.

Final thoughts

While I am a huge proponent of Palworld coming to Android and iOS, Amikin Survival is the mobile equivalent of “we have Palworld at home,” and that’s really not a bad thing. It offers enough survival fun, head-to-head monster battles, and base-building intrigue to keep most players happy with what is ultimately a leisurely handheld experience.

All in all, Amikin Survival promises an “endless adventure” with a robust world filled with magic, monsters, and plenty to explore... and this is “just the beginning.” Whatever the future holds is uncertain, but I think I’ll play this title for a little while longer, just to see where it goes.

Amikin Survival is available to download today for free on iOS/iPadOS and Android.

Google has worked hard to accelerate the growth of its AI platform, Gemini. In just several short years, it went from playing catch-up with the likes of OpenAI to baking it directly into every bite of Android, Drive, and more. Now, as its capabilities reach new heights, Google Gemini has its sights set on a new target: eliminating the media industry.

Okay, so maybe Google isn’t trying to tear down the very websites that provide the search results that power Gemini, – at least I don’t think so – but that’s exactly what will happen if things continue down the current path.

Why is Google Gemini a threat to the websites you love?

At Google IO last week, the search giant showcased a series of Gemini features that are coming to its platforms and services this year. Among them were new Android security enhancements, Google Workspace upgrades, and a Google Photo ability called Ask Photos.

Most notable to this discussion, however, is a generative AI search trick that you can try out right now dubbed AI Overview. As the name suggests, this new capability promises to “let Google do the searching for you” by culling data directly from websites and compiling it into a neat little summary that’s easy to read without clicking on a single article or link.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Won’t that cause websites to receive fewer clicks from Google Search results and hurt their bottom lines?” you’re on the right track. However, Google claims that this feature doesn’t harm websites but actually helps them, stating:

With AI Overviews, people are visiting a greater diversity of websites for help with more complex questions. And we see that the links included in AI Overviews get more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing for that query. As we expand this experience, we’ll continue to focus on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators. As always, ads will continue to appear in dedicated slots throughout the page, with clear labeling to distinguish between organic and sponsored results.

Of course, it’s hard to see how this is actually true. Why would anyone click on an article if the answer they’re looking for is sitting right at the top of the search page? Since the feature launched, I’ve personally encountered AI Overview a handful of times when searching random topics, and the AI-generated results were almost always good enough that I got the info I needed, no clicking required. Now extrapolate that out across millions of users and billions of searches per day, and clicks are bound to take a dive.

Biting the hands that feed

The irony of AI Overview affecting click rates is that publishers aren’t the only group who will suffer. Google itself, which earns a large heap of revenue each year through its ad network, needs an open and free internet to survive. A drop in clicks means that Google’s profits will also plummet.

That’s not to say Google will standby idle while its earnings take a hit. To make up for losses, it’s not unreasonable to suspect Google will eventually pack ads directly into Gemini AI Overview. This won’t help struggling websites, of course, but at least Google will get paid (woo hoo!).

The catch-22 switcheroo

Another level of irony to the situation is that Gemini needs the open web in order to comb through published content, pull together summaries of information, and serve it all up in AI Overview. But as Google subverts article clicks and website traffic, your favorite sites will begin to shut down one by one. As this happens, Gemini will have less and less data to cull, eventually muddying AI Overview results until they’re either bad, incomprehensible, or unusable, after which this silly experiment will fail.

The consequences of this exact point came up during a Threads conversation I had with tech YouTuber, Shane Craig. Most regular non-techie Google users who rely on AI Overview won’t even realize their favorite websites are dying until they suddenly disappear.

The truth is that Gemini makes searching the web easier and faster than it’s ever been, and you get expert advice in a quick and concise paragraph that gives you what you need with a dose of instant gratification. It’s brilliant! But each AI Overview summary served is a financial hit to websites that are already scraping the bottom of the ad revenue barrel as it is, and there’s only so much publishers can take before they can’t keep the lights on or pay their staff any longer.

All of AI is coming after the media

Gemini isn’t the only offender, either. AI services like Microsoft’s Bing Copilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT also siphon data from the internet and serve it up to users without a direct click of monetization back to the sites it was all stolen taken from.

Gemini, however, is still the AI platform that stands do the most damage to media websites and even businesses that rely on customer traffic through search results. As the leading search engine on the planet by miles, Google serves up 3.1 trillion searches per year. Normally, these queries would be met with a series of webpages that can be clicked on, read, and monetized so that websites and Google alike get paid for their expertise and page rankings. With Gemini, though, the middle man (and any rightful profits) get cut out, to creators’ detriment.

AI Overview can’t be disabled, either. Sure, there’s a new “Web” tab on the search toolbar you can use, but that’s at least one or two clicks away and provides less information, making it a nonstarter for most users. As it stands, AI Overview is the way of the future for Google Search.

How to fix Google’s AI Overview mess

The small, fragile silver lining to this mess is that there is a way out, but it’s not easy or even amicable. Here are just a few of the possibilities that could pave the way forward:

1. First and foremost, Google needs to monetize Gemini search results and pay the proceeds back to the websites that supply data to each query. This is the fair, responsible, and right thing to do, and it’s in the best interests of website publishers, search users, and Google. Everyone gets what they want; case closed.

2. If Google decides not to treat websites and their content fairly, government-backed legislation is the next likely move. Consider petitioning your local lawmakers; tell them that Google’s AI Overview feature is stealing content from websites, big and small, and must be held accountable, starting with proper compensation to all affected sites.

3. This one gets messy, but there’s the prospect of a class action lawsuit on the horizon. If publishers and businesses ban together, they can sue Google for income lost due to AI Overview’s negligent theft and copyright infringement.

4. Next, readers (that’s you) should go back to bookmarking and directly visiting your favorite websites instead of relying on Google to provide answers. With this method, Google still gets ad revenue and your sites get to keep the lights on and pay their staff.

5. Finally, if you really love the open internet and want websites to thrive, maybe give another non-AI-powered search engine a try — one that still wholeheartedly supports SEO rankings and monetization.

Don’t be evil

There’s no getting around the fact that the company whose slogan used to state, “Don’t be evil,” has just embarked on one of its most nefarious propositions by setting AI Overview out into the public with no regard for how it will impact publishers and even users.

Based on the keynote at Google IO 2024 last week, it’s clear that Google is betting big on Gemini and its swath of features, some of which are more helpful than others. As end users, it’s up to us to hold Google accountable, praising them for features that work and demanding better for the features that are plain evil. Make no mistake — AI Overview in its current form will hurt the internet, publishers, and the writers who are paid to produce content every day.

As a long-time Google user and fan, I don’t think the company launched AI Overview with ill intentions. But after careful analysis, it’s clear that the potential pitfalls are far more egregious than Google considered. Now it’s up to users to speak out and petition for more responsible AI that benefits us all.

Artificial intelligence was sold to consumers as a powerful smart solution that can have a conversation, create content, organize information, and conduct tasks in a way that improves peoples’ lives. But as new versions of advanced AI programs like ChatGPT hit the market, the once-bright future that was promised is looking more grim each year.

Early last week, OpenAI unveiled the latest iteration of its generative AI software named ChatGPT-4o. On the surface, this new model looks quite impressive. It can do things like communicate using human-sounding voices with minimal latency, recognize vocal tones and emotions, see and identify objects with the help of a camera lens, and translate a multilingual conversation in real-time — the types of things you would expect an average human to do.

From a tech demo perspective, it was all pretty neat to watch. But think just a little farther beyond the glitz and glamor of what some are calling the “Jarvis” of the modern age, and the future of humanity looks pretty bleak.

The whiplash of AI evolution

Artificial intelligence has evolved at a breakneck pace, starting with crafting simple prose and quickly graduating to much larger projects, like drawing art, producing videos, composing music, and even impersonating humans, complete with the typical pauses, inflections, and personality you’d find in the nearest human being.

The question is, “Why?” What is the purpose of AI that can do everything a person can do, oftentimes faster and with fewer errors? (I’m certain an AI bot could’ve written this article much quicker than I did and with far more research pulled from its nearly endless vat of training data.)

Why are so many companies pursuing AI innovation? Profits are probably the biggest driving factor. But as the tech giants of today duke it out for AI supremacy, they’ve evolved their platforms with reckless abandon, chasing the cutting-edge of development with no regard for how it will negatively impact people, careers, and society as a whole.

ChatGPT’s wondrous future (or dystopian hellscape)

AI has already disrupted several major pillars of civilization. For starters, it’s blown a hole through the education system by enabling students to write perfectly legible essays and answer complex questions without a single ounce of research or personal growth. It has stolen creative works crafted by designers, content creators, and artists who perfected their crafts over decades of practice, recompiled them, and passed them off as its own. It’s even destroying careers as its ability to write, reason, code, and organize data has caused companies to reevaluate the need for human employees in key roles.

Despite how devastating the last several years of AI development have been to education, the arts, and career trajectories, it’s only getting started. Follow these implications into the next 5-10 years, and the future looks outright terrifying.

Imagine a world where humans don’t need to exist. Most jobs are performed by AI-powered programs all talking to one another and exchanging data at corporate companies across the globe. Essential jobs in stores, the fast food industry, and beyond are all filled by AI-powered bots that can take an order, make a burger, and process a payment much faster, cheaper, and more efficiently than any human ever could. Public transportation all runs on timed schedules without a single person behind the wheel; one day, you might not even be allowed to own a car for the sake of safety and to offset the potential for human error. Even trade skills – some of which can be deemed as “too dangerous” for humans – are much better served by specialized AI solutions that require no extra time, education, or training to complete.

In a dystopian AI future, humans are relegated to second-class citizens or worse. We don’t make money. We don’t build, create, or design anything that an AI program couldn’t do faster, better, or cheaper. We’re just remnants leftover from a lost age where we were once a free people with dreams, aspirations, and goals that were all obfuscated by the pursuit of artificial intelligence.

That doesn’t mean all people will be relegated to the sidelines. The heads of major corporations that own AI programs like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, etc., will reap trillions in profits each year, while the rest of us fight for what human jobs still remain (if any at all). Everyone after that will either be resigned to scrounging up crumbs of universal basic income afforded to us by the government and major AI corporations, or live in complete obscurity as we try to hold onto the last bit of purpose left in our lives.

ChatGPT and the post-human age

Sure, OpenAI’s fancy tech demos and altruistic promises to bring AI to the masses sound great today, but don’t be fooled. Whether intentional or not, there is no doubt that ChatGPT and programs like it will ultimately eliminate the need for humans, first at work, then at school, and then in society altogether.

This sentiment has never been more clear than in ChatGPT-4o’s humanistic qualities, from its range of voices, to its developing personality, to its ability to form ideas and recall memories from past conversations. For all intents and purposes, ChatGPT-4o is transforming into a digital person.

Some of us might come to see AI as a friend, a coworker, or a helpful companion. Corporations might see cheaper and more reliable employees that never take sick days or argue with management. The government might see military soldiers that target enemies with pin-point precision and carry out missions without a single mistake.

Eventually, we will reach the point where it doesn’t make sense to put unpredictable humans into important or dangerous positions when a flexible, obedient, and intelligent AI program simply makes more sense. Slowly, or perhaps even all at once, humans will no longer be needed to operate the society our ancestors built.

Hope on the horizon?

Humanity’s best hope for a somewhat stable future is that the AI bubble bursts before we reach our breaking point, and that may happen sooner than later. The truth of the matter is that AI requires a ton of computing power to carry out even the simplest of tasks. It doesn’t just need servers packed to the brim with the latest GPUs and other hardware components, but then it needs a staggering amount of electricity to process a single query – power that our grid simply can’t sustain under load, especially with the government putting greater focus on EVs and charging networks that still require conventional means of energy production, at least for now.

It would also take a huge amount of money and bandwidth to ensure every AI-powered computer, bot, and mechanism on the market has constant access to stable Wi-Fi that can relay information back and forth without any hesitation — not just for one establishment that uses AI but for every single business, building, and home around the world.

In short, the energy and network resources required for an AI-powered nation are so astronomical that we can’t even fathom what it would take to build it. We simply don’t have enough power and network capacity to tame it all today. Sure, some businesses and government agencies may be able to go all-in on AI, but we are a long way away from our infrastructure having the capacity to sustain a complete AI dystopia... though that won’t stop companies like OpenAI from building the programs to make it possible.

What happens next

The worst part about artificial intelligence is that it’s inevitable. Just like smartphones and the internet before it, AI isn’t something that can be ignored. At this very moment, it’s being built into every product, every service, every website, and every facet of life imaginable. If you don’t learn how to spot it and leverage it in your favor, you may find one day that it takes your job, impacts your livelihood, and even disrupts the way you live your life.

AI is a poison pill to humanity — a Trojan horse marketed to benefit the very society it will ultimately bring down.

It’s no longer unimaginable to see a future where human ingenuity, creativity, and spirit are relics of the past. With ChatGPT-4o, we don’t have to think for ourselves anymore. Or reason. Or create. We don’t even need to put effort into our human relationships. We can simply summon a fancy AI that will do what we want it to do, tell us what we want to hear, and be whatever we want it to be while we waste away into the dystopian future fabricated by our techbro overlords.

The only way out is to see artificial intelligence for what it is and reject it – or at the very least, limit its power. Otherwise, the human race deserves whatever comes next.