Plus: the Apple reviews are in, and all aboard the electric flying carpet | The iPhone SE has carved itself a nice little niche | An Air of uncertainty
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I feel like we're living in a world dominated by Apple launch events sometimes – if it's not the hyped-filled build-up or the event itself, it's the aftermath. That's all I seem to be writing about these days.
That said, I do love it when we get a slew of new products in for review. Trying them out as part of my daily routine, finding out what's new, and assessing if, and where, the company has made advances and where it's made a misstep… it never gets old.
Below I'll talk about Apple's new iPhone SE and iPad Air, and we also saw new phones from Samsung this week, while Netflix dropped some bad news.
And if you just want our Global Managing Editor John McCann talking about the lyrics to a song from Aladdin, we've got that too…
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The new SE is the latest version of Apple's affordable iPhone (Future)
I do quite like the idea of the iPhone SE – a cheaper version of the iPhone in an older chassis that can be manufactured for less money, but has many of the innards of the latest models.
That's precisely what we've got again with the new iPhone SE – it has the same design as the iPhone 7 from way back in 2016, and yet we're still talking about it like it's innovative. The A15 chipset inside is really strong, and helps to improve the quality of photos to the level where they belie the older bits of the hardware.
The SE can't compete in terms of photography or display quality with the iPhone 13 range – or even the 12 series, which is still available as a refurbished model – and I don't think Touch ID is that useful anymore, now that Face ID is really quite swift.
But for those on a limited budget, you're getting all the power of the latest Apple handsets – you'll just need to be okay with the fact that it's in a form factor that's far from cutting edge.
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Is the new iPad Air suffering from an identity crisis? (Future)
I was torn over which other Apple review to include in this slot – should I go for the impressively-powerful Mac Studio, or the new iPad Air? Well, having spent a week with the latter, I plumped for that, but I would suggest that you check out Matt Hanson's informative and enjoyable review of the Studio if you're interested in a powerhouse Apple desktop machine in a smaller form factor.
The iPad Air has me intrigued, because I can't really work out where it fits into Apple's tablet lineup. It looks like the iPad Pro – it has the same chipset, delivers comparable performance, and connects to the same Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil accessories. It's basically a 'Pro Lite'… but it doesn't cost that much less than the Pro.
But I really enjoyed my time with the new slate. I really stress-tested it as a laptop replacement, and while iPadOS still doesn't offer as good a dedicated desktop experience as you get with a MacBook, it's now not far off. It's a media powerhouse that's delightfully portable – a real do-it-all device.
I even had fun digitally sketching on it, even if I don't expect to be making waves in the art world any time soon.
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Coming soon to Netflix: a $2.99 price hike? (Shutterstock / wutzkohphoto)
According to a study a couple of years back, 14% of all US Netflix users were sharing their password with people outside of their family, and that number has likely only gone up. We, of course, would never dream of doing that, would we readers?
But it seems like Netflix might have cottoned on to the fact that people are ignoring the requirement that every profile in your household should actually be within shouting distance, and is testing a $2.99 surcharge to offset the loss in revenue from widespread account-sharing.
There's no confirmation that this price hike will be levied on all accounts in the future – there's a marketing benefit to Netflix from people sharing someone else's account and eventually signing up for one of their own. It all depends on the company being able to accurately gauge who's using the platform as intended, and how many kids at college are still using their parents' account.
I love the sound of the Citroën C5 X, given that these days I often have a sleeping baby in the rear of my car when I'm driving. The C5 X packs scanners that can assess the road layout ahead, and alter the suspension to make the ride as smooth as possible.
John McCann went on a press trip to try out the new vehicle and confirmed that it was indeed super smooth, and that when in all-electric mode it's essentially silent, such is the noise isolation from the outside world.
John likened it to the experience of driving a Rolls Royce (yes, he's actually driven one), or to riding on a flying carpet (I'm less sure if he's done that) – and if those aren't selling points the I don't know what are.
Samsung had a very low-key launch for its new A-series of phones – its mid-range devices that don't cost anywhere near as much as the full-fat S-series.
The A13, A33, A53 and A73 were announced (although the latter phone was only accidentally teased at the end of the press release), with the focus on the A33 and A53. We've gone hands-on with both phones, and it's the A53 that impresses the most, with a great screen and an impressive array of camera features.
Samsung has been doing a nice line in affordable but well-specced, and nice-looking, phones for some years now, and the new A-series are more of the same.
I wanted to share this piece simply because it's basically me primally screaming at the world. I got in late on Thursday night, and as it was after midnight I decided to do Friday's Wordle so that I could update our daily Wordle answer article.
I managed to get to _ATCH in two attempts, but after trying LATCH, CATCH, HATCH and BATCH, I was out. WATCH was the correct answer, and since then I've been speaking to linguists, word puzzle-solving experts and others to get some deeper insights into how to crack this thing.
This article is me at my very lowest. Please share in my despair.
I won't lie to you, dear reader – this one went over my head. It might be because I've had basically no sleep for about a month, but as much as I tried, I couldn't grasp the concept of a universe that's the twin of ours, runs backwards in time and explains the presence of elements of dark matter.
However, I do love the idea that our universe is locked in some sort of cosmic cycle with another, unseen world. It would help to explain so many things, like how the universe is inflating, why neutrinos all spin left, and why when you drop a piece of toast it always lands butter-side down.
It's another cracking read from our colleagues at LiveScience.
This is from the editor
I'm not sure if I'm addicted to Wordle or not, but I am playing it a heckuva lot. Is that bad? Am I growing my brain, or just becoming obsessed with another thing on my phone?
Do let me know if you're suffering with a similar affliction – drop me an email, making sure to include NEWSLETTER in the subject line, and we can commiserate / celebrate together.
I got an interesting email from Ed about last week's newsletter: "It sounds like a whole lot of NOTHING to me." I'm assuming that was something to do with Apple's latest launch event – if so, I wonder how he's going to feel about the reviews I've mentioned in this week's missive…
