The Google Stadia could gaming service is finally branching out to more devices. It will arrive on the excellent Google Chromecast with Google TV streaming dongle on 23rd June, as well as a number of TV sets running the Android TV operating system. And, all you’ll need to enjoy the service is a compatible Bluetooth controller (and a Google Stadia subscription, of course).
Here’s the full list of supported devices, as of 23rd June:
Chromecast with Google TV
Hisense Android Smart TVs (U7G, U8G, U9G)
Nvidia Shield TV
Nvidia Shield TV Pro
Onn FHD Streaming Stick and UHD Streaming Device
Philips 8215, 8505, and OLED 935 / 805 Series Android TVs
Xiaomi MIBOX3 and MIBOX4
If your Android TV isn’t supported, you might be able to sign up for Google’s experimental support – this lets it run on a wider range of devices, though the experience won’t have been optimised, so “not every Android TV OS device will work perfectly”, Google warns. To do so, install the Stadia app from the Google Play Store, and opt in when asked.
Many have seen the lack of Stadia support on Chromecast with Google TV a major oversight – though it didn’t stop the streaming dongle earning five stars in our review – so this wider rollout will be welcome news for many. And as well as adding some much-needed gaming skills to a handful of Android TVs, it makes an already excellent media streamer even better.
MORE:
Read our guide to the best video streamers
Check out the competition: Amazon Fire TV 4K review
Find out how to watch Apple TV on your Android TV device
We’ve had not one, but two big Apple Spatial Audio announcements during today’s 2021 WWDC keynote. The first is that Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio for Apple Music is rolling out now.
The second is that Apple is bringing spatial audio to tvOS and MacOS. This means you’ll be able to use your AirPods Pro and AirPods Max wireless headphones to take advantage of surround sound and 3D audio from the new Apple TV 4K and any Macs equipped with Apple’s high-tech M1 chip. You’ll also be able to experience dynamic head tracking which means that the sound always stays relative to the screen, even when you move your head.
Apple said that Spatial Audio for tvOS and MacOS will arrive “this Fall”, so we’re assuming it will be September, around the same it’s expected that Apple’s new iOSv15 will roll out.
MORE:
Apple spatial audio: what is it? How do you get it?
Apple Music’s spatial audio with Dolby Atmos launches today
Apple Music lossless: which devices will (and won’t) play lossless and Spatial Audio
Siri is finally coming to third-party devices. Apple announced at its WWDC keynote that HomeKit accessory makers will be able to integrate Siri voice control into their products starting later this year. The voice assistant will be routed through a HomePod if the devices are connected to your network.
Apple hasn’t released a comprehensive list of devices and brands that will support Siri. The company demoed it on an Ecobee thermostat during its WWDC keynote presentation. It also announced support for Matter — a new interoperability standard that has big players like Amazon, Google, and Samsung on board — will come with iOS 15.
Apple also revealed a number of smaller smart home features. Home Keys, which allow you to remotely lock and unlock doors by tapping your iPhone or Apple Watch, are coming to Wallet app, as are work keys and hotel keys.
Image: Apple
The HomePod Mini will support lossless audio in Apple Music later this year and will be able to function as a speaker for the Apple TV 4K (as does the discontinued full-size HomePod). Apple also announced that the HomePod Mini will ship to more countries this month — including Austria, Ireland, and New Zealand — as well as Italy by the end of the year.
HomePods also now support commands for the Apple TV (so you can ask Siri to play shows), and SharePlay now works with Apple TV, which will enable you to watch shows synchronously with friends over FaceTime.
Speaking of Apple TV, tvOS now includes a “Share with You” row, where friends can share shows with each other via text messages. Another new row called “For All Of You” is intended to help families find shows to watch together — it will curate suggestions that combine every user’s viewing history.
Apple
And the Apple Watch now supports the HomePod’s intercom feature, which will allow you to talk to HomeKit-enabled doorbells and access package detection from your wrist. You’ll be able to control nearby HomeKit accessories in camera view.
Spatial audio is coming to Apple Music today, Apple has confirmed at its WWDC (Apple Worldwide Developers Conference).
Last month, Apple announced that Dolby Atmos-powered spatial audio tracks would soon be coming to its music streaming service alongside CD-quality and hi-res lossless audio for no additional cost, and while we patiently await a release date for lossless quality, “thousands” of spatial audio songs will be available to Apple Music subscribers from today.
Spatial audio with Dolby Atmos is designed to deliver surround sound and 3D audio via your headphones; to put “multidimensional sound and clarity” between your ears. This experience works with Apple’s AirPods, as well as any headphones. That’s right, Apple Music’s spatial audio tracks will play on all headphones (and here’s how to enable it).
Unlike the spatial audio feature that initially launched as part of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, the new Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos for Apple Music doesn’t require the sensors in Apple’s own headphones to enable head-tracking (which helps position the sound accurately). The implementation for Apple Music of spatial audio is sound-only, and this opens it up to more devices. For example, while the Apple TV can’t output spatial audio to a pair of headphones (a feature we’d very much like to see added in the future), it will support Dolby Atmos tracks from Apple Music when connected to an Atmos-capable sound system.
So keep your eyes peeled for today’s update, Apple Music subscribers, because this is sure to be a freebie worth checking out. And when will lossless audio quality follow? Very soon, we expect. Last week, some users reported seeing lossless and hi-res icons appear on the service, suggesting its arrival is imminent.
MORE:
With Apple and Amazon offering lossless streaming for no extra charge, what now for their rivals?
Apple Music lossless: which devices will play lossless and Spatial Audio
Apple spatial audio: what is it? How do you get it?
Apple is bringing video and music sharing to FaceTime through a feature it’s calling SharePlay. Using SharePlay, people will be able to watch or listen to content in sync with everyone else on the call, either by casting the content to an Apple TV device while staying on the call or by watching both on the same screen using Picture in Picture.
SharePlay won’t be limited to just Apple TV Plus and Music, though — it’s an API that other developers can integrate their services into, and Disney Plus, Hulu, TikTok, and more are already on board (though Netflix is notably absent).
These services will support SharePlay.
The feature will even be supported for users who are joining the call using the newly announced FaceTime for the web.
Developing… we’re adding more to this post, but you can follow along with our WWDC 2021 live blog to get the news even faster.
Google is expanding the availability of its Stadia game streaming service to more TVs and streaming devices later this month. The first version of Stadia on Chromecast with Google TV is launching on June 23rd, more than eight months after the device launched without official Stadia support.
Alongside Chromecast with Google TV support, Stadia will also be available on a number of Android TV devices on June 23rd. Not every Android TV device is supported, but Nvidia’s Shield TV devices have made the list. Here’s the official support list:
Chromecast with Google TV
Hisense Android Smart TVs (U7G, U8G, U9G)
Nvidia Shield TV
Nvidia Shield TV Pro
Onn FHD Streaming Stick and UHD Streaming Device
Philips 8215, 8505, and OLED 935 / 805 Series Android TVs
Xiaomi MIBOX3 and MIBOX4
If you don’t see your Android TV device listed, you may still be able to get Stadia running. You can opt into experimental support to play Stadia, just by installing the Stadia app from the Play Store and hitting continue on the opt-in screen. Android TV devices will need a compatible Bluetooth controller or Google’s own Stadia Controller to play Stadia.
Loki, the one-time Marvel villain played for over a decade now by Tom Hiddleston, is on the verge of starring in his own series. Instead of playing the scene-stealing antagonist — or, later, grudging sidekick — to Chris Hemsworth’s square-jawed Thor, the God of Mischief is finally going to get to be fully in the spotlight. It’s something that fans have been asking for since the character first made his scenery-chewing debut in 2011’s Thor — but the new show looks far more detached from the MCU than any of his previous adventures.
Loki is a new kind of series for Disney Plus. It’s the first that intentionally feels like a capital-S Spinoff. The first two Marvel shows, WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, occupied very different roles in the overarching storyline that Kevin Feige has been overseeing for the last 23 odd films.
Those two shows are arguably continuations of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame,providing more breathing space and room for exploration of events that might have, in an earlier phase of the Marvel experiment, been obliquely referenced in between movies. WandaVision, at the end of the day, is a prelude to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness; Falcon and the Winter Soldier is a setup for the upcoming fourth Captain America film rumored to star Anthony Mackie as the star-spangled Avenger.
If one were feeling particularly cynical, you could view Loki as being less tied to a grand storyline and more to Disney and Marvel just giving the people what they want. Hiddleston’s depiction of the character has long been a fan-favorite. His repeatedly faked-out deaths and journey from murderous villain to an almost-hero speak to Marvel’s hard work to keep the character in play.
It’s easy to look at Loki in a similar vein: the latest attempt by Disney to cash in on the popularity by resurrecting Loki one last time for an adventure that will get fans who might not have cared about Wanda’s grief, Vision’s existential crisis, or Falcon’s internal struggle with race and power in America to pony up for a Disney Plus subscription.
Loki is a natural story thread as much as a shoehorned backdoor pilot stuck into Endgame’s time heist. It’s not the bridge between blockbuster movies. It’s a show that’s attempting to strike out on its own, starting a new story for the trickster god that’s — at least in theory — less tethered to future films. But in the same approach, its relatively disconnected status means that (in addition to pandering) there’s the opportunity for Marvel to actually make a more standalone series that can actually be a good TV show, instead of just serving as blockbuster-lite fare stretched across too many episodes.
It’s a dichotomy that the original modern Marvel TV series — ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — struggled with over its run. The earlier seasons still attempted to stuff themselves into a box constrained by the films, with major plot points and character cameos dictated by the blockbuster release schedule, much to the detriment of the show. But once S.H.I.E.L.D. started to ignore the movies and strike out on its own (helped in part by the fraying relationships between Marvel Studios and the separate, and now shuttered, Marvel Television division) it became a far better series.
Image: Chuck Zlotnick
By ignoring the larger MCU films, S.H.I.E.L.D. was able to branch out with storylines like its Ghost Rider and Framework arcs instead of trying to hide in the cracks between movies. And the show’s final seasons — a time-travel-infused adventure — completely jettison the “everything is connected” mantra that dominated the first two seasons to become an almost completely standalone series that wasn’t weighed down by awkward continuity issues or shoehorned cameos.
Loki, as a character, has been best in small doses so far: a villainous turn here, a monologuing speech there, a few back stabbings on his way toward redemption. It’s possible that a full series for the character will be too much of a good thing — that Loki, absent the foil of his brother or the Avengers, just isn’t too compelling on his own.
But Loki could help elevate Disney Plus’ series into more standalone stories that don’t just serve as way stations toward films (or as standalone as a Marvel related story can be, at any rate). It’s a lesson that the comics that all these movies and shows are based on have taught long ago: sometimes the best stories are the standalone one-shot spinoffs, not the 1,000-issue epics.
It hit me this morning that there is no new episode of Mare of Easttown on this evening and I felt a little sad, but wow what a finale. Emmys for Kate Winslet and Julianne Nicholson, please (and be sure to read Sophie Gilbert’s excellent analysis in The Atlantic of the way women and mothers were centered in this very good series). I did not correctly predict who the killer was (but ICYMI, Stephen King did and don’t click that link if you haven’t watched the finale because obvs, spoiler). All this is to say I am in the market for a new show so I just started Hacks and can’t wait for the Loki premiere on Wednesday.
The (unintentional) theme(s) for this week’s trailers roundup: Memories and nostalgia.
Roadrunner
This documentary about Anthony Bourdain, who died from suicide in 2018, is “narrated” by Bourdain himself, using a mix of unused and archived footage. The trailer, which shows snippets of Bourdain’s rise from “anonymous chef” to famous best-selling author and globetrotting TV host, is appropriately melancholy, and includes several shots that linger on Bourdain’s face as he appears deep in thought, or at least, focused elsewhere. It reminded me of the trailer for Won’t You Be My Neighbor, the 2018 documentary about the late Fred Rogers (and got me thinking about the differences and similarities between the two men), which makes sense, since both Roadrunner and Neighbor were directed by Oscar-winner Morgan Neville. Really looking forward to this one. Roadrunner comes to theaters July 16th.
Black Widow
If it feels like we have been waiting a LONG TIME for Black Widow, that’s because we have: the first trailer dropped in December of 2019. This latest trailer (teaser? I don’t even know anymore. It’s exactly one minute long) is titled “Playmaker” and has a few scenes we’ve seen in earlier trailers along with some action sequences (but no clues about who plays Taskmaster). Scarlett Johansson (obvs), Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, O-T Fagbenle, William Hurt, and Ray Winstone star in Black Widow which finally comes to Disney Plus (with Premier Access) and theaters on July 9th.
Reminiscence
Hugh Jackman plays a “private investigator of the mind” who helps clients access lost memories in a dystopian future, and one day a mysterious woman walks into his office— you get the drift. Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy wrote and directed Reminiscence and the trailer has that show’s futuristic dread/“bring yourself back online” feeling, along with Thandiwe Newton in a starring role. Rebecca Ferguson and Daniel Wu also star in Reminiscence, which comes to theaters and HBO Max on August 20th.
iCarly
Continuing with the trend of “all shows that have even the tiniest bit of nostalgia attached to them must get a streaming reunion and/or reboot,” the show about the teens who had a web show is back with most of its original cast (Jennette McCurdy famously opted not to reprise the role of Carly’s best friend Sam). Hearing Spencer (Jerry Trainor) say “damn it” and offer Freddie (Nathan Kress) a beer shook me a little bit, but the trailer does warn us that they’re “all grown up” (and not on Nickelodeon anymore). Miranda Cosgrove returns as Carly in the all-new iCarly series, which comes to Paramount Plus June 17th.
Nvidia does not have plans to bring its ray tracing-enabled GPU architectures to smartphones or other ultra-mobile devices right now, CEO Jensen Huang told journalists at a Computex meeting this week. The statements come just days after AMD confirmed that upcoming Samsung smartphones using AMD RDNA2 GPU architecture will support ray tracing.
According to Huang, the time for ray tracing in mobile gadgets hasn’t arrived yet.
“Ray tracing games are quite large, to be honest,” Huang said, according to ZDNet. “The data set is quite large, and there will be a time for it. When the time is right we might consider it.”
AMD, meanwhile, has licensed its RDNA2 architecture, which supports ray tracing, to Samsung for use in the upcoming Exynos 2200 SoC expected to power its laptops and other flagship mobile devices. AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su said this week that the SoC will indeed support ray tracing.
“The next place you’ll find RDNA2 will be the high-performance mobile phone market,” Su said, as reported by AnandTech. “AMD has partnered with industry leader Samsung to accelerate graphics innovation in the mobile market, and we’re happy to announce we will bring custom graphics IP to Samsung’s next flagship SoC, with ray tracing and variable rate shading capabilities. We’re really looking forward to Samsung providing more details later this year.”
Currently, Samsung’s Exynos-powered smartphones use Arm Mali-powered graphics; whereas, Qualcomm Snapdragon-based handsets use Adreno GPUs.
Nvidia is in process of taking over Arm, which develops general-purpose Cortex CPU cores as well as Mali graphics processing units for various system-on-chips (SoCs). Nvidia has long tried to license its GeForce technologies to designers of mobile SoCs and devices without any tangible success. If Nvidia’s acquisition of Arm is approved by various regulators, Nvidia will be able to offer its latest GeForce architectures to Arm licensees. Yet, it appears Nvidia has no immediate plans to bring GeForce RTX to smartphones.
Nvidia’s Ampere and Turing architectures seem to be too bulky for smartphone SoCs (and even for entry-level PC graphics) anyway. For now, the company will have to use its GeForce Now game streaming service to address demanding gamers on smartphones and tablets.
“That’s how we would like to reach Android devices, Chrome devices, iOS devices, MacOS devices, Linux devices — all kinds of devices, whether it’s on TV, or mobile device or PC,” said Huang. “I think that for us, right now, that is the best strategy.”
Yet, ray tracing is nothing new on mobiles. Imagination Technologies architectures since the PowerVR GR6500 introduced in 2014 have supported ray tracing, so it’s up to hardware designers to decide on implementing the capability and game designers to leverage it. Imagination’s PowerVR ray tracing implementation is currently supported by Unreal Engine 4 and Unity 5, but it’s unclear whether it’s primarily used for eye candy, performance increase and/or power reduction.
Floyd ‘Money Man’ Mayweather is set for a blockbuster showdown with YouTube ‘personality’ Logan Paul at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, on Sunday 6th June. Mayweather has called the eight-round exhibition bout “legalised bank robbery”. It’s a $50 pay-per-view in the US but only £17 in the UK. Follow our guide on how to watch a Mayweather vs Logan Paul live stream from anywhere in the world.
Mayweather vs Logan Paul live stream
Date: Sunday 6th June 2021
Venue: Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL, USA
Start time: 1am BST / 8pm ET / 10am AEST
Mayweather vs Logan Paul: 4am BST / 11pm ET / 1pm AEST
UK stream: Sky Sports Box Office (£16.95)
Watch anywhere: Try ExpressVPN
US stream: Showtime ($49.99)
AUS stream: Main Event ($49.99)
Rest of world: Fanmio($49.99)
So, can one of greatest pound-for-pound boxers of all time beat one of social media’s biggest stars? Mayweather vs Logan Paul: Bragging Rights certainly got off to a spicy start this week when Mayweather allegedly punched Logan Paul’s brother at the press conference.
“It’s one thing to sell a fight, and people can say what they want, but one thing no one is going to do, is disrespect me,” Mayweather fumed. “The boxing was the mashed potatoes. I guess these guys now are the gravy.”
Mayweather is undefeated (50-0, 27 KOs) having ended his professional career with a 10th-round stoppage of UFC star Conor McGregor back in August 2017. The Money Man might be a 44-year-old dad of five, but his famous speed and accuracy makes him clear favourite to take this bout.
That said, 26-year-old Logan Paul will be 30lb heavier when he steps into the ring and has a 4-inch reach advantage over his opponent. Paul returns to the ring for the first time after losing to fellow social media star KSI in November by split decision.
It’s an exhibition, so there will be no judges and no official winner. Knock outs will be the referee’s decision. The eight three-minute rounds will be boxed without headgear. The packed undercard features former NFL star wide receiver Chad Johnson making his boxing debut against Brian Maxwell.
Sunday’s unmissable PPV is much cheaper in some countries than in others. Here’s how to find a Mayweather vs Logan Paul live stream from anywhere in the world…
Watch Mayweather vs Logan Paul for only £16.95
(Image credit: Sky Sports Box Office)
UK boxing fans can catch this weekend’s big fight live on Sky Sports Box Office for £16.95. Some have grumbled at the price but it’s less than half what it costs in other countries. So, in that sense, it’s a bargain.
If you’re a UK citizen trying to watch from the US or Australia, you can always use a VPN to access a Mayweather vs Logan Paul live stream from anywhere in the world. We recommend ExpressVPNas it comes with a risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee.
You don’t have to be a Sky subscriber. You can watch Mayweather vs Logan Paul online through the Sky Sports Box Office app and website. Simply set up a Box Office account, buy the fight, and you’re good to go.
Mayweather vs Logan Paul: Get the big fight for £16.95
Sky Sports has the rights to the epic Mayweather vs Logan Paul exhibition boxing match. Non-Sky customers can stream the event live for only £16.95 across a range of mobile devices including the iPad. Order in advance and ready for the big fight!
Mayweather vs Logan Paul live stream anywhere in the world using a VPN
Even if you have subscribed to the relevant Mayweather vs Logan Paul rights holders, you won’t be able to access these streaming services when outside your own country. The service will know your location based on your IP address, and will automatically block your access.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) helps you get around this obstacle. A VPN creates a private connection between your device and the internet, such that the servers and services you’re accessing aren’t aware of what you’re doing. All the information passing back and forth is entirely encrypted.
There are many VPN providers out there, with some more reliable and safe than others. As a rule, we’d suggest a paid-for service such as ExpressVPN.
Try ExpressVPN risk-free for 30 days ExpressVPN offers a 30-day money back guarantee with its VPN service. You can use it to watch Canelo vs Saunders on your mobile, tablet, laptop, TV, games console and more. There’s 24/7 customer support and three months free when you sign-up.
US: Mayweather vs Logan Paul live stream
(Image credit: Showtime)
US boxing fans looking for a Mayweather vs Logan Paul live stream will need to pay-per-view. Showtime has the exclusive and is charging $49.99. Ouch.
UK boxing fans who find themselves in the States this weekend can use a VPN to watch the boxing via Sky Box Office for only £16.95. We recommend ExpressVPN as it comes with a risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee.
Brian Custer, the veteran sportscaster, will host the Showtime event and will be joined by Desus Nice and The Kid Mero, hosts of the hit late-night Desus & Mero show. The duo will provide their brand of off-the-wall commentary throughout the night.
The Mayweather vs Logan Paul live stream will be available through Showtime’s website and apps (iOS, Android, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Android TV, Apple TV 4th Gen+, Xbox One).
Australia: Mayweather vs Logan Paul live stream
Aussie boxing fans can order a Mayweather vs Logan Paul live stream through Main Event. The price? A one-off fee of AU$49.95.
UK boxing fans who find themselves in Oz this weekend can use a VPN to watch the boxing via Sky Box Office for only £16.95. We recommend ExpressVPN as it comes with a risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee.
Rest of the World: Mayweather vs Logan Paul live stream
Not in the UK, US or Australia this weekend? Fanmio has you covered. The streaming site is charging $49.99 for pay-per-view access. It’s not cheap but the price does include a limited edition Mayweather vs Logan Paul T-shirt (you have to the pay the shipping, though, so it’s not entirely ‘free’).
Mayweather vs Logan Paul free live stream
Sadly there are no opportunities for get yourself a Mayweather vs Logan Paul free live stream. The cheapest option is Sky Sports Box Office in the UK (£16.95)
Mayweather vs Logan Paul fight card
(Image credit: Sky Sports Box Office)
Floyd Mayweather vs Logan Paul – Exhibition
Badou Jack vs Dervin Colina – Light Heavyweight
Jarrett Hurd vs Luis Arias – Middleweight
Chad Johnson vs Brian Maxwell – Cruiserweight
Jean Carlos Torres vs Zack Kuhn – Junior Welterweight
Adrian Benton vs Pedro Angel Cruz – Lightweight
Micky Scala vs Adam Ramirez – Junior Middleweight
Dorian Khan vs Jonathan Conde – Featherweight
Jalil Hackett vs Angelo Diaz – Welterweight
Viddal Riley vs Quintell Thompson – Cruiserweight
Mayweather vs Logan Paul tale of the tape
Name: Floyd ‘Money Man’ Mayweather – Logan ‘The Maverick’ Paul
Nationality: American – American
Date of birth: 24th Feb 1977 – 1st April 1995
Height: 5ft 8 inches – 6ft 2 inches
Reach: 72 inches – 76 inches
Total fights: 50 – 1
Record: 50-0, 27 KOs – 0-1, 0 KOs
Floyd Mayweather on Logan Paul
“It’s going to be fun. It’s what I do. There’s a difference between being a YouTube fighter and an elite fighter. I’m a fighter, and I don’t worry about anything. I’ve been a professional for 25 years, and I’ve fought the best and seen every style, and I always came out on top.
“Why not fight Logan Paul? He’s huge on YouTube. He has a huge following. Before I even knew about YouTube, I was huge in boxing. And when you bring his world with my world, man, it’s going to be crazy.
“I never worry about the height or size. It’s all about the skills. That’s one thing about Floyd Mayweather. I’ve got skills.
“The boxing was the mashed potatoes. I guess these guys now are the gravy. I retired from boxing, but I didn’t retire from entertainment or from making money.”
Logan Paul on Floyd Mayweather
“I didn’t choose boxing; boxing chose me. I got challenged to box, and I answered that challenge. I kind of fell perfectly into the sport. Truthfully, boxing is easier on the body than MMA. MMA is hard. I got bad knees. I’m old now. I’m ageing. My upper body is strong, and I have dense bones. My strength is all in my upper body.
“I’m going in there with that energy, and he’s got everything to lose. There’s a lot on the table for him, not a lot on the table for me, and that’s a dangerous man… It’s a fight, so anything can happen.”
Apple’s annual developer extravaganza, the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), is coming up fast, kicking off with the keynote presentation on June 7th at 1PM ET. Like last year, WWDC will be an entirely digital and online-only event due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and for the keynote, that means we can likely expect another tightly produced video highlighting everything Apple has in store.
While we aren’t expecting any announcements on the level of Apple’s shift to custom silicon in its computers, which was WWDC 2020’s big news, Apple presumably has some notable changes in the works for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and its other operating systems. And if the current rumors pan out, we could also see brand-new MacBook Pros with the return of some long-missed features, such as MagSafe charging.
Read on to learn everything we expect from the big show. And don’t be surprised if Apple has a few surprises in store, too.
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
iOS 15 may bring improvements to notifications and iMessage
We haven’t heard much about what may be coming to Apple’s next version of its mobile operating system, which will presumably be called iOS 15, but we could see big changes to notifications and possibly iMessage, according to Bloomberg.
For notifications, you may be able to have different notification settings for situations like driving, working, sleeping, or even a custom category, and you’ll be able to flip those on as you need to. You might also be able to set automatic replies based on which notification setting you’re currently using, like what you can do now with Do Not Disturb while driving mode. Personally, I’m hoping iOS 15 will let me allow notifications from a select few people while silencing just about everything else.
As for iMessages, Apple is apparently working on features to make it act like “more of a social network” to compete with Facebook’s WhatsApp, Bloomberg said, but those features are still “early in development” and could be announced at a later date.
Apple also plans to add a feature that shows you apps that are silently collecting data about you, continuing the company’s trend of adding privacy-focused updates to its operating systems.
For iPadOS 15, you can apparently expect a major update to the homescreen, including the ability to put widgets anywhere you want. And with Apple just introducing the new M1-powered iPad Pros, here’s hoping we see some new upgrades to take advantage of the new chip.
In May, Apple also announced a lot of new accessibility features coming to Apple’s operating systems, such as improvements in iOS to VoiceOver, support for bidirectional hearing aids, a built-in background sounds player, and new Memoji customizations like cochlear implants. Apple said these features would arrive “later this year,” which suggests they’ll be included in iOS 15.
We don’t know much about macOS, watchOS 8, and tvOS 15 — but we could see a new “homeOS”
We haven’t heard all that much about upcoming software updates for the Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV, so we’ll just have to wait and see what Apple is cooking up. One tidbit: macOS could be a “more minor” update, Bloomberg says. That wouldn’t be too much of a surprise, given that the macOS operating system got a big overhaul with Big Sur last year.
However, we could see the introduction of a brand-new operating system called “homeOS,” which was recently mentioned in and later removed from an Apple job listing. While it’s unclear exactly which devices this OS is for, perhaps it will work on Apple’s home-focused products like the Apple TV and HomePod Mini.
Photo by Alexander Kramer for The Verge
New, redesigned MacBook Pros and a new Apple CPU could be announced
Apple doesn’t always introduce new hardware at WWDC, but this year, new MacBook Pros seem like a possibility. In a May 18th report, Bloomberg said that new MacBook Pros might arrive “as soon as early this summer,” which could indicate an announcement at WWDC.
These new laptops would have new Apple-designed processors that would “greatly outpace the performance and capabilities of the current M1 chips,” according to Bloomberg. The M1 is already pretty dang good, so it sounds like these new chips could be even more impressive.
Apple is apparently planning on releasing two chips for the new Pros. Both should have eight high-performance cores and two energy-efficient cores, while leaving you with the option of either 16 or 32 graphics cores. (By comparison, the M1’s CPU has four high-performance and four energy-efficient cores, while its GPU is offered with either seven or eight cores.) You’ll probably also be able to spec the laptops with as much as 64GB of memory, up from a max of 16GB on M1-equipped computers.
The new laptops should be offered with either 14-inch or 16-inch screens and those screens could have “brighter, higher contrast” displays, according to a Bloomberg report from January. The laptops may also have a new design with flat edges as in the iPhone 12, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in January. I’m curious to see what that design might look like in practice — I worry that the hard edges could be uncomfortable if you have the laptop on your lap.
The best rumor is that the new design may also mark the return of some of the ports and features that were taken away with the now-infamous 2016 MacBook Pro redesign, including a MagSafe charger, an HDMI port, and an SD card slot, Bloomberg said in its May report. And, according to Kuo, the OLED Touch Bar currently found on Intel-based MacBook Pros will apparently be removed in favor of physical function keys.
We could see at least one other new Mac
While it seems like MacBook Pros are the only new hardware we’ll be seeing at WWDC this year, that hasn’t stopped some other Mac rumors from swirling lately, and there’s always the chance Apple could announce more at its big event. According to Bloomberg, Apple also has “a revamped MacBook Air, a new low-end MacBook Pro, and an all-new Mac Pro workstation” in the works as well as a “higher-end Mac Mini desktop and larger iMac,” all of which would be powered by Apple’s custom silicon.
The new Mac Mini may have the same chip as the new MacBook Pros. The new Mac Pro could be a beast, with processors that are “either twice or four times as powerful as the new high-end MacBook Pro chip.”
And the redesigned “higher-end” MacBook Air could arrive as early as the end of this year. Frankly, I hope that refreshed Air arrives even later. I just bought the M1-equipped Air and it’s one of the best computers I’ve ever used, but I have a bad feeling I’ll be first in line to buy a redesigned and more capable Air anyway. (Especially if it gets the MagSafe charger that’s rumored for the new Pros.)
Apple might have dropped a hint about its AR / VR headset
Apple has long been rumored to have a mixed reality headset in the works, and recently, we’ve learned a few more potential details about it. The headset might be very expensive — approximately $3,000, according to one report — though it could be packed with 8K displays, more than a dozen cameras to track hand movements and capture footage, and might weigh less than an iPhone, too.
While the headset could be a ways out, as it’s not expected to ship until 2022 at the earliest, a few suspicious details in Apple’s WWDC promotional images may be hinting toward some kind of reveal of Apple’s upcoming headset or the software on which it runs.
Check out this image below (that I also used at the top of this post), which Apple released alongside the announcement of WWDC in March. Notice the way the app icons are reflected in the glasses — I could imagine some sort of mixed reality headset showing icons in front of your eyes in a similar way.
Those icons sure are reflected in an interesting spot.Image: Apple
Apple continued that reflections motif with new images released in May — you can see things from the laptop screens reflected in all of the eyes of the Memojis.
Look at those reflections.Image: Apple
Now, these reflections may just be Apple’s artists flexing their design chops. And if I had to guess, given how far out a rumored mixed reality headset is, I don’t think we’re going to see anything about it at WWDC this year.
But Apple has surprised us in the past, and maybe these images are an indication of one more thing Apple has in store for WWDC.
The specs and feature highlights are appealing but the Halo falls short when it comes to subtlety
For
Excellent black depth
Bright for the money
Handy portable features
Against
Blunt contrast control
Poor speaker placement
If you’ve ever had to pull an all-nighter for work, then you’ll know the taste of the 4am cup of coffee – strong and effective, much like the Xgimi Halo portable projector. Subtlety is not its strongest suit, but it most certainly gets the job done.
Chinese brand Xgimi has been making smart projectors and laser TVs since 2013. Now armed with an impressive array of seven portable projectors, ranging from standard-definition up to 4K, it’s here to take on Epson, BenQ and, most notably, Anker Nebula as the go-to brand for your all-in-one big screen needs.
The Xgimi Halo is just about the midpoint of the series. With its wireless speaker-sized frame, built-in battery, 800 ANSI-lumens LED light source and 1080p HDR output, it could be the home and away portable projector that meets all your needs.
Build
(Image credit: Future)
Squint and you could be forgiven for mistaking the Xgimi Halo for an aluminium Sonos One, though the Halo is a little larger at 11cm tall and 15cm wide, and it weighs 1.6kg. It’s about as large as you’d want a portable projector to be before it becomes a hassle to carry around.
Xgimi Halo tech specs
(Image credit: Future)
Resolution 1080p, HDR, 4K input support
Internal storage 16GB
Brightness 800 ANSI Lumens
Throw ratio 1.2:1
Battery life 2-4 hours
Dimensions (hwd) 11 x 15 x 17cm
Weight 1.6kg
Inside is a 2x 5W Harman Kardon sound system and a DLP projector set-up with a 0.33in DMD (digital micromirror device) at its core. The LED light source is rated to last for 30,000 hours of viewing which translates as eight hours of use per day for the next 10 years – hopefully enough for almost everybody’s needs.
The light is focused by a fixed lens with a 1.2:1 throw ratio that can produce a picture of between 30 and 300in, with a 100in image possible at a distance of 2.67m.
On the outside, there is a single HDMI port (ARC-enabled), a USB and a 3.5mm headphones socket. You can plug in most games consoles, disc players and external speakers, and play files on USB sticks, hard drives, and even from the 16GB of internal storage space. Two-way Bluetooth is available, too, so you can play music through the Halo sound system from your phone or output the projector’s audio signal to a bigger external wireless speaker.
Control of all this and more is through the rather tasteful voice remote control. It includes buttons for direct access to the settings menu and input selection as well as the usual navigation, volume and focus controls too.
There are two other helpful items included. The first is a built-in battery that offers two to four hours of video use, depending on brightness settings, and eight hours of audio playback. Also, tucked underneath is a little kickstand that is useful for angling the Halo up to the right position. The weight of the machine feels quite a lot for a little flap like this and, though it’s fine during our testing, we’re not convinced it would hold up in the longer term.
Features
(Image credit: Future)
Like many portable smart projectors, the Halo uses Google’s Android TV 9.0 OS to take care of the apps and menus. Google Assistant provides an effective voice search, and there is also the Chromecast screen sharing technology to fill in most app gaps.
There are a fair few of those, with Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Apple TV, ITV Player, All 4, Now, Apple Music and BBC Sounds all missing. Chromecast can’t stream the Apple services but there are other, free Android TV apps available to help mirror content from iOS.
Setting up the picture projection itself couldn’t be easier. The Halo is fitted with autofocus and auto-keystone. Each time you turn it on, or when its internal gyroscopes detect that you’ve moved it, the 10,000-point AF system springs into life and produces something close to the best possible image, with an impressive keystone correction of up to +/-40 degrees vertically and horizontally.
Like most portables, the Halo runs far quieter than a traditional home cinema projector. It’s rated at less than 30dB and we’re never once distracted by the sound during testing. It’s also 3D-enabled. All you need is some content and a pair of active shutter glasses.
Picture
(Image credit: Future)
The minute you switch on the Halo, you get a good idea of just how bright this projector can go. There’s certainly less luminance on the table than with traditional home cinema projectors, but the Halo is a clear step ahead of the entry-level portables, such as the Anker Nebula Mars 2, and pretty much on a par with the more expensive Epson EF-12.
The big, white Xgimi logo is quite blinding with the lights off. We don’t struggle to see what’s going on when we add some ambient lighting and that bodes well for outdoor cinema use, as well as watching sports with friends.
Popping Bumblebee on 4K Blu-ray into our player, that translates to a good, strong picture with plenty of colour saturation. The early scene at the boardwalk funfair is a real treat. The sky is a beautiful sapphire blue, the candyfloss a brilliant synthetic pink and the paintwork of the 1980s cars is a line-up of some wonderful teals, burnt oranges and assorted metallics. At its best, the Halo even has enough skill with colour handling to have skin tones not look out of place either.
However, when the light levels drop, the Halo comes unstuck. Black depth itself is decent, but the detail within those dark zones is scant. The Standard preset gets the most out of the shadows, but even so, we struggle to find much in the way of individual hair strands on Charlie’s head as she rides her scooter off to the scrapyard.
There are similar problems in other areas of this tonally mixed scene. The brightness in the sky behind her is quite blown-out for whites and the shadows in the foreground are strong patches rather than careful shades. There just isn’t enough care in handling the contrast on offer.
The contrast problem is particularly hard going with a film that has any kind of added aesthetic such as Fury in Full HD. The grainy WWII drama is a hard watch on the Halo and there aren’t enough adjustments available to get a picture that’s consistently bright and detailed.
One moment, we have the external scene of the ruined German town square exactly where we want it – some texture to the masonry, a sense of daytime – and the next we’re plunged into a chequerboard of jarring light levels in the apartments where the dead Nazi officers are slumped in their chairs.
It’s even more problematic with standard-def content. We watch Up In The Air on DVD and the upscaling is handled relatively well. Any noise is easily reduced by taking the sharpness setting down and applying a light touch to the Noise Filter, but that heavy contrast is tough to take, with detail even thinner on the ground than before.
The Halo struggles to produce any difference in the blocks of black or navy blue in the suits of the business people in this film. The moment the characters sit on any dark furniture, everything bleeds together and half of each frame can be lost. As impressive as this projector can be at times, at the first sign of a difficult frame the Halo’s big, punchy strengths turn out to also be its most significant weaknesses.
Sound
(Image credit: Future)
Sound is a genuine consideration when buying a portable projector. While we’d always recommend upping the ante with a soundbar, headphones or wireless speaker, the 2x 5W Harman Kardon sound system in the Xgimi Halo is largely well appointed and makes an acceptable stopgap for AV and music listening needs.
The Bumblebee soundtrack is a pleasure to listen to through the projector alone. Steve Winwood’s Higher Love provides a real moment of joy as Charlie drives away in her first car, thanks to the decent dynamic ability of the system. There’s plenty of weight and a clear tonal balance that never threatens to get too bright even when we push the volume towards its limits.
Unfortunately, Xgimi has chosen to have the drivers facing forwards on the Halo and that seems an odd choice. The throw distance means you’ll most likely be sitting behind this projector and so the sound will be going the wrong direction. It makes the audio more muffled than it should be but, even in front of the Halo, it is still a touch soft and lacking a little precision compared with the Epson EF-12.
The clicks and whirrs aren’t quite as crisp as they could be when Bumblebee transforms from car to robot in the garage. There is some good spatial sense to the sound as the yellow bot’s metal parts unfold. Details might be placed more clearly in the soundscape if the Halo had a little more organisational know-how.
For this price, it’s the dynamic ability we’re most pleased with. Listening to Know Your Enemy by Rage Against The Machine, there are plenty of dramatic ups and downs and appropriate attacks and crescendos to make the song exciting.
Verdict
The Xgimi Halo makes a good stab at a serious step-up device from entry-level portable projectors, but it doesn’t quite reach a rich and complex level of performance.
Its brightness, battery, storage, speakers and connectivity options mean that, at first glance, it looks the part of a punchy and convenient travel projector. It’s still small enough to throw into your bag, but big enough to give some impact around the house or even in the garden.
But, while it is a decent option for social watching situations, its picture quality just isn’t up to the same standards as those around it. Spend a bit more on the Epson EF-12 and you get a far more sophisticated portable projector. If you need something with a built-in battery, then the Anker Nebula range seems to provide more image subtlety and at a lower price too.
Users are complaining that the Disney Plus and HBO Max Apple TV apps aren’t properly supporting the excellent new Siri Remote. Disney Plus has yet to be updated to make use of the remote’s helpful scroll wheel scrubbing feature, which works on rival Netflix and Apple TV Plus apps. The HBO Max app has more issues, Screen Times reports, and lacks support for several of the remote’s features and voice commands.
When we tried the HBO Max app for ourselves, we found it doesn’t seem to support the new remote’s D-pad. Instead, we could only use the remote’s touchpad circle, which is technically an element of the remote you’re supposed to be able to disable. Scrubbing using the touchpad works, just very badly. The cause of these problems appears to be a recent app update, which replaced the standard tvOS playback UI with HBO’s own (and apparently far less capable) version.
It just goes to show that a platform holder can build a powerful combination of hardware and software in support of third-party apps and services, but it doesn’t mean anything unless those same apps and services actually bother to add support. We’ve reached out to both Disney Plus and HBO Max to see if they’re aware of the issues, and to find out when users can expect a fix.
Taito is the latest Japanese video game publisher to resurrect old hardware in mini form. The company behind Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, and many more arcade classics has just announced the Egret II Mini, which like Sega’s excellent Astro City Mini is a shrunken-down version of a popular arcade cabinet.
The original Egret II was released in the ‘90s, and its key feature was the ability to rotate its screen 90 degrees so that games with tall aspect ratios — like Space Invaders and other shooters — could be played in tate (vertical) mode. Appropriately enough, that feature is present on the Egret II Mini, which has a 5-inch 4:3 LCD that can be played in either orientation.
The Egret II Mini’s primary controls include six primary buttons and an arcade-style microswitched stick that can be adjusted from four to eight directions depending on the game. There’s also an optional expansion controller that includes a paddle input for games like Arkanoid, as well as a trackball for the likes of Cameltry.
Here’s what the controller looks like. It’s 240 x 100 x 48mm, so it looks pretty substantial — somewhere between a traditional gamepad and fighting stick in size.
Taito is also selling a gamepad and an additional arcade stick as optional extras:
There’ll be 40 games preloaded on the cabinet itself, and the expansion controller also includes an SD card with ten games that use the paddle or trackball. Here’s the list of titles that have been confirmed so far:
Space Invaders
Lunar Rescue
Qix
Elevator Action
Chack’n Pop
Bubble Bobble
Rastan Saga
Rainbow Islands Extra
New Zealand Story
Don Doko Don
Violence Fight
Cadash
Liquid Kids
Metal Black
Kaiser Knuckle
The paddle/trackball games so far confirmed for the bundled SD card include:
Strike Bowling
Arkanoid
Plump Pop
Syvalion
Cameltry
Arkanoid Returns
Beyond the SD card slot, the Egret II Mini also has a USB-C port for power, two USB-A ports for controllers, an HDMI port for TV output, and a headphone jack.
The Egret II Mini could get pretty expensive depending how big of a Taito fan you are. The cabinet itself costs 18,678 yen (~$170), the expansion controller is 12,078 yen ($110), the extra arcade stick is 8,778 yen ($80), and the gamepad is $3,278 yen ($30). There’s also a 49,478-yen ($450) limited bundle that includes everything plus some extras like soundtrack CDs, and a 32,978-yen ($300) bundle that excludes the arcade stick and the gamepad.
At least there’s time to save up your yen — the Egret II Mini won’t ship until March 2nd 2022.
Paramount Plus is set to introduce a new ad-supported plan on Monday that will cost just $5 per month — half the price of its more premium plan.
The primary difference between what the service is calling its “essential” plan and the more expensive commercial-free plan — besides the addition of ads — is some missing content. The $10 commercial-free plan includes both local and national news coverage with CBSN and CBS live, whereas the new essential plan only includes national news with CBSN. There’s more sports coverage on the commercial-free plan as well, and premium users also get support for offline downloads.
Both plans include access to tens of thousands of TV episodes and movies, as well as the platform’s originals, but premium tier subscribers will only see ads on live TV programming and a handful of series. Of note, the new budget plan — which will replace an existing limited-commercial tier — will not include a user’s local live CBS channel that’s also included in the limited-commercial experience, a spokesperson for the service confirmed to The Verge.
As was announced when the service officially launched in March, the new tier will replace an older $6 option that was carried over when the service rebranded from CBS All Access. The commercial-free plan normally costs $10 per month, but the company offered a limited commercial programming option for $6 per month. Though those who are currently on the $6 plan can remain on that tier if they so choose.
If you’re a current subscriber to an existing $6 plan grandfathered in from CBS All Access, you may want to stay on the slightly more expensive plan you’re currently on — at least if local news coverage is important to you. Additionally, if a limited-commercial subscriber opts into the new $5 plan, they will not be able to switch their plan back to the $6 tier after June 7th.
In other words, if you’ve been considering a Paramount Plus subscription and would like local news coverage included in your ad-supported experience, now’s the time to subscribe. If limited advertising is less important to you than shaving a buck off your streaming tab every month, then keep an eye out for the new plan come launch day on June 7th.
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