Enlarge / The Nintendo Switch OLED. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Development hardware for Nintendo's next console is already in some third-party developers' hands in preparation for a launch in the second half of 2024, according to sources who spoke with gaming news site Video Games Chronicle.

Sources that spoke to Eurogamer corroborated the late 2024 release window, and a Nikkei Asia report previously claimed earlier this year that Nintendo planned to launch its next console sometime after spring of 2024.

Citing "multiple people with knowledge of Nintendo's next-gen console plans," Video Games Chronicle also claims to clarify a few details about the Nintendo Switch's successor. Like the Switch, it will also be usable in portable mode. However, two of Video Games Chronicle's sources suggested that Nintendo will go with an LCD screen to keep costs down, which would make it a downgrade from the latest Switch model in one key area.

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Enlarge / The back of the iPhone 13. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Apple has announced an additional hoop developers must jump through to get their apps approved on its App Store. Soon, developers of apps that use certain APIs will have to clarify their reasons for using them when submitting those apps.

Apple is trying to close some fingerprinting loopholes here. The term "fingerprinting" in this context refers to various techniques for learning information about a device or its user and tracking them across multiple unrelated apps or websites.

It's something that Apple has been saying is not allowed in iPhone apps for a while, and the company introduced the controversial App Tracking Transparency initiative in 2021 to give users a choice in whether things like mobile ad networks (for example) could track them in this way.

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  These left-aligned tabs are sorted into "pinned tabs" and "today tabs." [credit: Samuel Axon ]

On Tuesday, The Browser Company made its unusual new web browser, Arc, widely available on desktop for the first time.

Arc has been available in an invite-only preview for about a year, but yesterday was the first day it became available  to download for all Mac users, with no waiting list. The widespread availability coincided with Arc's graduation to version 1.0, too.

Arc was only released on the Mac and iPhone for now, but The Browser Company says it plans to launch on Windows before the year's end.

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Enlarge / A promotional image made by Apple to convey what the in-person developer labs for Vision Pro will be like. (credit: Apple)

Apple needs third-party apps for Vision Pro when it launches next year, but most developers don't have the headset yet. That would seem at first glance to be a conundrum, but on Monday, Apple opened up three different ways app developers can start testing their apps on Vision Pro hardware well before the product launches to the public.

None of them are surprises, of course—Apple previously laid out these plans at WWDC. But now developers can actually start signing up for and using these resources.

It has been possible to get at least some serious work done since Apple made a beta release of Xcode available with support for visionOS. That version of Xcode (Apple's IDE for Macs that is required to build apps for the company's various platforms like iOS) includes a visionOS Simulator that presents work-in-progress visionOS apps in a virtual 3D space navigable with keyboard and mouse or trackpad controls.

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Enlarge / Apple's current AI assistant, Siri, is far less capable—but also less error-prone—than tools like Bard or ChatGPT. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Apple has built its own large language model (LLM) AI framework and associated chatbot service similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Bard, and Microsoft's ChatGPT-based Bing Chat, according to a new report.

The project is codenamed "Ajax" internally, the sources say, though some engineers within the company colloquially refer to it as "Apple GPT." It is built on top of Google machine learning framework Jax and runs on Google Cloud.

The news comes via an article from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who cites "people with knowledge of the efforts." Gurman has generally been accurate in his reports citing sources like these in the past, though he has seemingly misinterpreted what he was told on rare occasions.

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Enlarge / What the Golf?, a popular Apple Arcade game, running in shared 3D space with other visionOS applications. (credit: Unity)

Starting today, some developers can use the popular software Unity to make apps and games for Apple's upcoming Vision Pro headset.

A partnership between Unity and Apple was first announced during Apple's WWDC 2023 keynote last month, in the same segment the Vision Pro and visionOS were introduced. At that time, Apple noted that developers could start making visionOS apps immediately using SwiftUI in a new beta version of the company's Xcode IDE for Macs, but it also promised that Unity would begin supporting Vision Pro this month.

Now it's here—albeit in a slow, limited rollout to developers that sign up for a beta. Unity says it is admitting a wide range of developers into the program gradually over the coming weeks or months but hasn't gone into much detail about the criteria it's using to pick people, other than not solely focusing on makers of AAA games.

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Enlarge / The 2022 13-inch MacBook Pro with an M2 chip. (credit: Samuel Axon)

The third generation of Apple silicon chips for Macs and iPads will launch before the end of the year, according to two reports. One simply claims that they will launch in the third quarter of the year, while another says October.

We've known for a while that the first Macs with the M3 processor were due soon, but we didn't know quite when. But in his weekly newsletter, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman said his sources claimed that in addition to the annual iPhone and Apple Watch launch event this September, Apple plans to put on one additional event in October. He then speculated that the "likely topic" of that event will be Macs, though he based that only on past history rather than any revelation by his sources. I agree this matches Apple's history, though; the company has often held a second event in October or November to launch new Macs and iPads after the iPhone fanfare from September has quieted.

Meanwhile, a preview of an upcoming DigiTimes report seen by MacRumors claims that "Apple's next-generation MacBook Pro slated for launch in the third quarter will feature 3 nm processors, according to industry sources."

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Enlarge / A promotional image for the new 83-inch S90C Samsung OLED TV. (credit: Samsung)

Samsung is about to begin selling its first TVs with OLED panels made by rival LG after months of negotiations. Unfortunately, the way the TVs that come out of this deal are branded and marketed could cause confusion for consumers who want the most bang for their buck.

On Tuesday, Samsung published a blog post revealing a new 83-inch TV that lives in the company's existing S90C range of high-end OLEDs. In truth, the set had been leaked weeks earlier, when excellently obsessive and detail-oriented TV expert Vincent Teoh of HDTV Test was quick to observe that Samsung does not currently make 83-inch panels itself—meaning this must be the first TV in Samsung's deal with LG.

The complicated story behind Samsung’s new OLEDs

The Samsung-LG deal was rumored in fits and starts for months. As LG made and shipped OLED TVs and panels and talked up the benefits of OLED compared to good-old LED LCD, Samsung stuck to shipping LCD TVs, introducing new technologies to try to keep the older technology competitive.

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Enlarge / With offline maps, Apple has achieved parity with Google Maps on this one feature after eight years. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Apple Maps has seen a significant comeback since it first debuted to near-universal panning in 2012, but anyone who has also used Google Maps can likely name a bunch of handy features that Apple Maps still lacks.

When iOS 17 releases this fall, though, one of those gaps will get covered. Apple will introduce downloadable maps—a vital feature for many users and one that Google has offered for years.

The iOS 17 public beta dropped this week, so users who aren't part of Apple's developer program can now access the feature for the first time—though I don't generally recommend installing beta operating systems on your daily drivers, of course.

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Enlarge / Product photography of the Google Glass wearable. (credit: Google)

Google's head of operating system and software platforms for augmented and mixed reality devices, Mark Lucovsky, has left the company after months of turmoil for the company's mixed reality projects and staff. He publicly announced his departure in a tweet on Monday:

I have decided to step away from my role at Google, where I was Senior Director of Engineering, responsible for OS and Software Platform for AR and XR devices. The recent changes in AR leadership and Google’s unstable commitment and vision have weighed heavily on my decision.

It's unclear exactly which leadership changes he's referring to, but it seems possible or even likely that he's talking about the recent departure of Clay Bavor, who had led Google's XR work since 2015. Bavor left the company in March of this year.

Google was one of the pioneers of mass-market AR when it piloted Google Glass with developers in 2013, but things have been rocky of late. The company killed Glass, brought it back as an enterprise-only product, then killed it again. Rumors swirled that the tech giant was working on a new AR product called Project Iris, but it was reportedly canceled this year amidst a wave of company layoffs.

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Enlarge / Pictured: Apple's 2022 Studio Display. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

In the subscribers-only section of his weekly newsletter, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman (who has reported accurately on new Apple hardware in the past) claims that Apple will introduce an external Mac monitor that can act as a smart home display when a Mac goes to sleep or is shut down.

The feature would be available on at least one monitor in an upcoming lineup that will likely include successors to Apple's Pro Display XDR and Studio Display. The newsletter didn't go into much detail about the upcoming displays beyond the smart home feature.

Like the Studio Display, a new monitor with smart home capabilities would run on a chip first seen in the iPhone. The Studio Display contains Apple's A13 chip—the same seen in the iPhone 11 line of smartphones. The upcoming smart display could potentially run on the A16 seen in the iPhone 14 Pro, since that device introduced a similar always-on display feature to Apple's smartphone lineup.

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  This is Apple’s Vision Pro headset. It looks a bit like a particularly bulky pair of ski goggles, with the materials and design language of Apple’s AirPods Max headphones. [credit: Samuel Axon ]

Recent discoveries by developers working with Apple's visionOS software development kit have revealed that Apple isn't going for room-scale VR with Vision Pro—something that will potentially frustrate users hoping for a high-end VR headset to compete with offerings from Meta and others.

As reported by 9to5Mac, Hans Karlsson of creative marketing agency Mimir lamented last week on Twitter that visionOS pulls users out of immersive VR when they move more than 1.5 meters away from the virtual environment's origin point, saying that Apple has thus "crippled VR" and made it so the platform is only for "couch potatoes." This wasn't new information, though; Apple's documentation for visionOS developers revealed this was the case during WWDC. The documentation reads:

When you start a fully immersive experience, visionOS defines a system boundary that extends 1.5 meters from the initial position of the person’s head. If their head moves outside of that zone, the system automatically stops the immersive experience and turns on the external video again. This feature is an assistant to help prevent someone from colliding with objects.

Around the same time, people discovered that Apple also yanks you out of any immersive environment if you start moving too quickly in any direction. visionOS will show users a message stating that they are "moving at an unsafe speed" and that "virtual content has been temporarily hidden until you return to a safe speed."

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Enlarge / The Meta Quest Pro. (credit: Meta)

Today, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to social media to announce that his company has launched a subscription service that gives users access to VR games every month. A blog post on Meta's website confirmed the details shortly afterward.

The service, Meta Quest+, will cost $7.99 per month, or $59.99 annually. For that, subscribers can download two curated VR games for free each month. In this first month, the games are Pistol Whip, a critically and commercially successful 2019 shooter from Cloudhead Games, and 2020's Pixel Ripped 1995, a retro-themed experience wherein players relive experiences endemic to the 1990s in low-poly VR.

Meta is positioning the service as a way to reduce the browsing and guesswork about which games to buy so users can "browse less" and "play more," suggesting that the goal here is to curate the very best of what's available on Meta's VR game marketplace.

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  This is Apple’s Vision Pro headset. It looks a bit like a particularly bulky pair of ski goggles, with the materials and design language of Apple’s AirPods Max headphones. [credit: Samuel Axon ]

Today, Apple announced the imminent availability of the visionOS software development kit, which will allow app developers to begin working on apps for the company's upcoming Vision Pro mixed reality headset.

Developers will use frameworks like SwiftUI, RealityKit, and ARKit to make augmented or mixed reality apps while working with tools previously used in Mac and iOS development, like Apple's Xcode IDE, Simulator, and TestFlight.

Tools like these can be used either to develop new spatial apps for Vision Pro or to adapt iPhone or iPad apps to be used as windows within the Vision Pro's interface.

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  This is the new library view. The interface isn't that different functionally, but it has a new coat of paint. [credit: Valve ]

PC gamers could easily make a joke that three things in life never change: death, taxes, and the classic look of Steam. One of those things just changed, though; Valve just released the most substantial overhaul to Steam in years, including a visual makeover and several new features.

Further, the company has brought the Mac and Linux versions of Steam closer to parity with the historically superior Windows version.

Valve says "the most impactful changes" are actually under the hood. The company's developers put effort into achieving greater consistency between how things work in Steam for desktop, the TV-oriented Big Picture mode, and Steam Deck. This codebase overhaul means that new features that come to the desktop version of Steam can simultaneously ship on Steam Deck with minimal effort.

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Enlarge / It’s just about the same thickness as the 13-inch model. (credit: Samuel Axon)

CUPERTINO, Calif.—People have been asking for a 15-inch MacBook Air for about as long as the Air has existed.

The Air was originally conceived as a laptop that was all about extreme portability. But over time it became the default MacBook for most people—and plenty of users don’t need the performance of a MacBook Pro but might like a little more desktop space or a bigger screen on which to watch streaming TV.

Apple has targeted those people here. I spent a few minutes handling and using the 15-inch MacBook Air and—surprise! It’s just like the most recent 13-inch Air but wider and taller.

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Enlarge / This is Apple’s Vision Pro headset. It looks a bit like a particularly bulky pair of ski goggles, with the materials and design language of Apple’s AirPods Max headphones. (credit: Samuel Axon)

CUPERTINO, Calif.—Going into the Vision Pro demo room at Apple’s WWDC conference, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The keynote presentation, which showed everything from desktop productivity apps to dinosaurs circling a Vision Pro user in space, seemed impressive, but augmented reality promotional videos often do.

They depict a seamless experience in which the elements of digital space merge with the user’s actual surroundings completely. When you actually put on the headset, though, you'll often find that the promotional video was pure aspiration and reality still has some catching up to do. That was my experience with HoloLens, and it has been that way with consumer AR devices like Nreal, too.

That was not my experience with Vision Pro. To be clear, it wasn’t perfect. But it’s the first time I’ve tried an AR demo and thought, “Yep, what they showed in the promo video was pretty much how it really works.”

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CUPERTINO, Calif.—Apple's watchOS hasn't been known for big, flashy feature updates in recent years, but 2023 could be an exception. During the company's annual WWDC keynote, Apple announced a ship date for watchOS—and a couple of notable new additions for Apple Watch users.

The main focus of the watchOS 10 update is the addition of widgets, which are similar to those previously seen in iOS and iPadOS. Using widgets, Watch wearers will be able to access some information and features of Watch apps without actually launching or browsing around in those apps. Widgets will appear on the watch face by just turning the digital crown and will appear in a "smart stack," and you can long-press on the stack to add more widgets. Apple demoed widgets for the weather, stocks, the calendar, fitness, timers, and complications, and developers will be able to add more, too.

Apple also spruced up some of the built-in apps. The activity app now has corner icons for awards and other fitness tracking, and there are new full-screen views. These corner icons will be a theme in most of the new app designs. There are two new watch faces, a minimalistic color-based watch face called "palette," and a licensed Snoopy & Woodstock watch face.

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  The Apple Mac Pro. It's still the cheese grater design. [credit: Apple ]

CUPERTINO, Calif.—It has been three years since Apple began transitioning its Mac lineup away from Intel chips to its own silicon, and that project completes today with the last product to make the transition: the Mac Pro desktop tower.

The Mac Pro might not look different from its predecessor on the outside, but on the inside, Intel's Xeon CPU and AMD's Radeon Pro graphics are gone, and in their place we have a new chip called the M2 Ultra. This is the same chip in the new Mac Studio; it has a 24-core CPU and an up to 76-core GPU, and it starts with twice the memory and SSD storage of the old Mac Pro. Apple promises it will be "3x faster" than the Intel Mac Pro. Memory tops out at 192GB. These stats all match the new Mac Studio—the only thing you get from the bigger chassis is expansion capabilities and more ports.

(credit: Apple)

The whole point of a Mac tower is support for traditional expansion cards, and that normally means discrete GPUs. Apple demoed some expansion cards, but none of them were graphics cards. It sounds like you'll be using the M2 Ultra's on-board GPU. Making real graphics cards work with an ARM chip would have been a massive undertaking—for starters, no ARM drivers exist. Even for the non-GPU options, compatibility will be an interesting problem. Apple calls out digital signal processing (DSP) cards, serial digital interface (SDI) I/O cards, and additional networking and storage as PCI express card possibilities.

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Enlarge / Apple's new Mac Studio offers the M2 Ultra chip, which, like its M1 counterpart, provides vastly greater computing power. (credit: Apple)

CUPERTINO, Calif.—The Mac Studio will be refreshed this summer with chips based on the M2, including the M2 Max and new M2 Ultra, the "most powerful chip" ever released "for a personal computer."

The M2 Pro and M2 Max have previously been seen in MacBook Pro models released late last year, but the M2 Ultra will be a first. In the M1 line, the Ultra was the top-of-the-line chip with substantially better performance than the Pro or Max—particularly in graphically intensive tasks. M2 Ultra will support 192 GB of unified memory, 800 GB/s memory bandwith, and a 24-core CPU and up to 76 cores of GPU. Apple claims the M2 Ultra will work 30% faster than the M1 Ultra, and that a single system with the Ultra can work machine learning datasets that would choke systems with discrete GPUs.

The M2 Max is "up to 50 percent faster" than the prior Max-based Studio, according to Apple, and features a 12-core CPU, 38-core GPU, and up to 96 GB unified memory, with 400 GB/s memory bandwidth.

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