You can complain all you want that smartphones are becoming increasingly boring, or you can take matters into your own hands and work with what you have. Despite the general stagnation in design and the prevalence of dull plastic-glass-titanium rectangles, it is possible to find unusual options for almost any budget. We searched for original yet relevant models and selected the most attractive and unusual ones. Nothing Phone Perhaps in 2025, this is the most obvious choice when it comes to smartphones with non-standard designs....

Travel days are complicated enough without wrestling a tiny PDF or a grainy screenshot into submission at the gate. For years, Android users flying American Airlines felt a specific kind of digital friction. While rivals like Delta and United fully supported Google Wallet , AA insisted its mobile boarding passes remain outside Google ‘s ecosystem, forcing travelers to rely on clumsy screenshots. Fortunately, the new support for American Airlines boarding passes in Google Wallet fixes this problem....

One of the best features on Android is controller support. It’s especially enjoyable in emulation and cloud gaming , but also in native Android games that support the peripheral. However, for native Android games, the experience feels somewhat lacking due to the lack of in-app remapping in some titles. That said, it seems Google is preparing a massive quality-of-life update that should change how the OS handles controller support, and it’s expected to arrive in Android 17 updates....

For years, the question of which phones offer the best gaming experience sounded like a straightforward Apple versus Android debate . In practice, the answer has been drifting in one direction. From budget devices in emerging markets to specialised gaming handsets with cooling chambers and shoulder triggers, the most intense mobile play now tends to happen on Android hardware. Behind that shift sits a mix of scale, silicon, and software. Android dominates global smartphone shipments and pulls an outsized share of mobile gaming traffic with it....

Apple is known for keeping its biggest technological advancements tightly under wraps. Now, details have emerged about a powerful, internal-only tool the company developed. We’re talking about a fully functional “ChatGPT-like” chatbot app that Apple staff uses to prepare Siri’s promised big AI-powered upgrade . Veritas: Apple’s ChatGPT-like app to test Siri’s upcoming AI upgrade As reported by Bloomberg , Apple employees call the testing application Veritas, Latin for “truth.” While the software gives Apple staff an early look at generative AI technology , the company has no current plans to release it to the public....

The iPhone 17 Pro Max was announced on September 9, 2025, by Apple at its annual iPhone event. It’s still the big boy here with a whopping 6.9-inch display, and now comes with nearly a 5,200mAh capacity battery. Which is quite large for an iPhone. Here’s everything you need to know about the iPhone 17 Pro Max. iPhone 17 Pro Max Specs How much does the Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max Cost?...

Reports suggest Apple is dialing back production of its premium, ultra-slim device, the iPhone Air , following underwhelming sales performance. The news, originating from Japan’s Mizuho Securities, paints a picture where one model stands as a notable exception in an otherwise strong year for the iPhone lineup. According to Mizuho, ​​Apple plans a production cut of one million units for the iPhone Air. However, the rest of the iPhone 17 series is performing exceptionally well....

Apple is preparing to bring its huge silicon expertise to the cloud. According to recent reports from reliable industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple plans to mass-produce its first dedicated AI server chips starting in the second half of 2026. This move suggests that while the company is currently leaning on partners like Google to power its AI features , it is quietly building a future where it owns the entire stack—from the pocket to the data center....

Apple ‘s hardware strategy is currently navigating two conflicting realities. On one hand, the company is committing to a future built around lightweight AI smart glasses. In line with this, Apple is reportedly shelving the development of a cheaper, lighter Vision Pro headset overhaul. On the other hand, a fresh report states that the launch of the next incremental update to the original headset, the Vision Pro 2 (tentative name), remains on track....

If you’re an AT&T customer and have been using the cloud Photo Storage app, sadly, it’ll shut down soon . The app, powered by Asurion, currently allows AT&T customers on eligible plans to store unlimited photos and videos in the cloud. However, the company has announced that AT&T users have until February of 2026 to download and secure their data. Users failing to do so will lose their files permanently....

There was a time when certain phones were only available at certain carriers, which made finding the best phone at AT&T and other carriers a lot more challenging, because you were limited to where you could get a specific device, but that isn’t the case in 2025. You can pick up just about any phone on any carrier, unlocked or not. Of course, you could also just get one unlocked and take it with you if you ever swap carriers....

CES has been a packed week of new and exciting devices, from all sorts of robotic technology to big and bright TVs. CES has also been the reveal for what might be considered less exciting technology, like storage solutions, but if there were ever a storage solution that was to be considered exciting, it would be the new UGREEN NASync iDX 6011 and iDX 6011 Pro , both of which are packed with capable features and powered by AI for some very smart functions....

Twitter (now X) co-founder Jack Dorsey’s weekend project, Bitchat Mesh, unlike traditional messaging apps, offers a different way to contact your friends and family. The app doesn’t depend on the internet to work. Instead, it relies on Bluetooth for messaging . While the Android version of the app is still limited to GitHub, the iOS version has now landed on the App Store . Bitchat Mesh offers a unique way to message friends The Bitchat Mesh app uses Bluetooth to relay messages from one person to another....

Did you know that there’s more to ChatGPT than just asking it questions? The AI model can connect to a bunch of various services to enhance its overall offerings, making it more powerful than most people realize. Now, ChatGPT is getting even more powerful with the launch of its own app store . ChatGPT gets its own app store Basically, what OpenAI has done is opened the ChatGPT SDK to developers....

On December 8, 2022, Disney+ finally launched its ads tier. So now you can save a few bucks and get Disney+ with ads. But it’s not as simple as just saving a few bucks a month with this plan. There are some other caveats here, as there were with Netflix. So let’s go over everything that you need to know about Disney+ with ads. How much does it cost? Coinciding with this launch of the ad-supported tier, Disney+ is also raising the price of its ad-free plan....

It’s kind of scary to think how much of our lives are on our phones. Our emails , our messages, our photos, our calendar appointments, our banking information, our social lives, and more. This means that someone with access to your phone can learn a great deal about you. So, is worrying that comprehensive and complex ransomware like DroidLock is making its rounds targeting Android devices . How DroidLock ransomware works According to a report from Zimperium , unlike traditional ransomware that encrypts your files, DroidLock ransomware takes a different approach....

CES 2026 has brought a practical solution to one of the most frustrating aspects of the modern smart home : fragmentation. EcoFlow and Homey (owned by LG ) have announced a partnership that finally allows home energy systems and smart appliances to talk to each other through a single interface. EcoFlow and Homey by LG partner for smarter home energy at CES 2026 For most people, managing home energy and controlling smart lights or appliances has traditionally required two different worlds....

Elon Musk has now announced a new AI startup called ‘Macrohard,’ and it aims to compete with Microsoft . The billionaire has teased the new trademark on his X/Twitter handle. The project is being described as purely AI-driven with ambitious goals in artificial intelligence. Musk targets bold goals with Macrohard Elon Musk, the face behind multiple successful projects such as xAI, Starlink, and Tesla, has now announced his new startup, Macrohard ....

Yesterday, Nothing started to tease the new Ear (3) earbuds on its social media platforms, including teasing a new “Super Mic” feature which is built into the buds’ case. Well, we’re opening the floodgates, with tons of marketing images for the new Nothing Ear (3). As Nothing already teased yesterday, the case does have a Super Mic, which is essentially a microphone built into the case that can be used as a mic for phone calls and such....

This will be Samsung’s best-selling smartphone in 2025 and 2026. This is the Samsung Galaxy A17. It is an ultra-budget device, but it does sell incredibly well for Samsung. In fact, for the first quarter of 2025, the Galaxy A16 was the best-selling Android phone in the world, coming in right behind most of the iPhone 16 lineup plus the iPhone 15. And this was the case for all of 2024 as well....