Amazon wants to be your next Fitbit. Last year’s Halo Band was the company’s first entry into fitness tracking, but this year’s Halo View, announced at an Amazon devices event today, feels a lot less weird. It’s more affordable, adds a color screen, and drops that creepy, always-recording microphone (which did have an off switch, …

One well-known thing about iPads: They’re used for Zooms and video chats all the time, but their front-facing cameras aren’t ideally placed. Apple’s newest iPad Mini and entry-level iPad are able to help with the awkwardness, somewhat: Center Stage is a digital zooming tool built into the latest iPad’s wider-angle cameras to automatically keep your face (and your family’s) in …

Nov 2021 All of Apple’s new iPads have relatively fresh designs… except for the basic iPad. While the new iPad Mini just got a total makeover, the ninth-gen non-Pro, non-Mini, non-Air iPad still has that big old circular home button. And it still has big bezels around the screen. There’s no USB-C. No Magic Keyboard or newer Pencil support. But …

What’s the most improved product in Apple’s lineup this year? It might be the sixth-gen iPad Mini. The company’s smallest tablet got the makeover I thought it needed years ago: Now it has the iPad Air’s better display, a USB-C port instead of Lightning, a much better processor and better cameras too. You can also magnetically snap an Apple Pencil …

Microsoft’s Surface Duo 2, announced today at the company’s virtual Surface event, looks like it’s addressed a lot of the previous Duo’s shortcomings: sometimes sluggish performance, one camera and a lack of 5G. Whether it can compete with the Samsung Galaxy Fold 3 remains to be seen, but the Duo finally has 5G, more cameras, a faster processor and even …

Apple’s iPad season usually comes in two waves: a few models in the spring, and the rest in the fall. Apple’s big event today could be when the company finally unveils the iPad updates that back-to-school shoppers have been waiting for. Or those iPads might emerge along with new Macs at a second Apple event later in the fall. Either way, now …

Facebook’s Ray-Ban Stories sunglasses feel almost normal at times. And, of course, utterly abnormal. And also very familiar. I’ve used products like this, off and on, for years. Welcome to Facebook’s first smart glasses.  After promising smart glasses for years, Facebook’s first glasses are disappointingly familiar. These aren’t AR glasses at all. They don’t have displays in them. Instead, they’re …

Feeling bored? Put a virtual animal in your home. One thing that might have felt like a passing fad but still gets people’s attention (at least according to the new likes on my old Twitter thread about it) is this list of augmented-reality animals that I dropped into the real world through Google search. That’s right. AR animals, now that …

I’d love to say the new Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, which starts at $250 (£249), delivers the ultimate Android watch experience. I can’t quite say that, but it’s close. After wearing Samsung’s newest watches for two weeks, however, I’ve liked it more over time. It’s the first to run a whole new Google Wear OS co-designed by Samsung and Google, and …

Fitbit makes way too many fitness trackers. But since the company was acquired by Google, its trajectory may be shifting. In the future we may see its apps on Google Wear OS, and eventually Fitbit could make its own new Google-infused watch. Until then, the Fitbit Charge 5 may be the best bet: It adds sensors that the more expensive …