How was your week? Did you get up early to pre-order a new iPhone 16? Looking at social media, it seems a lot of people did – perhaps they read our coverage and hands-on reviews, the general theme of which is that Apple’s latest smartphones are decent if not substantive upgrades.
Slightly better cameras, a nifty camera control ‘button’, and more powerful silicon arguably all pale in comparison to the sea change coming with Apple Intelligence. Apple’s own AI won’t arrive with the new iPhones, but it’ll show up shortly after, and it will potentially transform a lot of your day-to-day interactions with Apple’s premier product.
We talked about all this during our first-ever TechRadar Podcast from Apple Studios – it’s well worth a listen.
Despite what Apple may think, the world does not turn on a Cupertino axis. Over in gaming land, Sony was surprising us with a wildly powerful new PlayStation 5 Pro. The CPU and all-important GPU are supercharged, as is the price. Oh, and yes, there is some AI.
If there’s a thread that runs through everything that happened this week it’s artificial intelligence, and we now have a new, reasoning-capable AI from OpenAI. Called o1-preview (formerly ‘Strawberry’), it’s already wowing a few of my TechRadar colleagues, and it could mark a pivotal moment in the generative AI revolution.
The entertainment scene is ramping back up as we shake off the summer doldrums and a fresh intake of streaming content arrives to fill our evenings – we’ll learn more about some of it when Netflix’s Geeked Week 2024 kicks off on Monday.
Finally, if you do nothing else this weekend, please read (it’s linked below) Becky Scarrott’s post on the new Rolling Stones Bluetooth speaker – it’s a hoot.
Have a great weekend!
Lance Ulanoff, Editor-at-Large
The week in Apple
Big changes are coming with Apple Intelligence (Apple)
Apple Intelligence is going to transform how we use Siri and other features on Apple devices, and we've put together a complete guide to the new AI technology and what it offers you – as well as the time frames each feature will launch in.
The big gaming news of the week was of course the reveal of the PS5 Pro. While we still have some unanswered questions, we now know a lot about Sony's next console, and we've rounded up the most important takeaways from the launch announcement.
ChatGPT just got a major update with a new o1-preview model, which adds extra thinking and reasoning capabilities – almost like a human being. It looks like another significant step forward for the chatbot, though availability is limited for now.
Having trouble choosing between the new handsets in Google's Pixel 9 series? Let us be your guide to what's on offer – and specifically how the super-sized Pixel 9 Pro XL stacks up against the foldable Pixel 9 Pro Fold, the successor to the Google Pixel Fold.
Whether you're planning to live out an Italian vacation through Netflix's Emily in Paris season 4 part 2, or want to catch one of this week's new movies, such as the acclaimed Kirsten Dunst-starring thriller Civil War, there's plenty worth streaming this weekend.
