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David Pierce

David Pierce

Editor-at-Large

Editor-at-Large

    More From David Pierce

    David Pierce
    David Pierce
    Gmail’s new iOS lock screen widgets are handy — but slightly confusing.

    The Gmail widgets for iOS 16 that Google teased last month are here, but they won’t show you all your unreads across accounts, though; you have to switch between them by opening the Customize menu and then tapping, not long-pressing, the widget.

    Still, it’s good to see Google supporting the latest iOS features. Even slightly haphazardly.

    David Pierce
    David Pierce
    Apple’s Crash Detection doesn’t seem to work very well.

    Joanna Stern at The Wall Street Journal ran a very fun and “not exactly scientific test” to see how the iPhone 14, Google Pixel, and Apple Watch did at actually detecting car crashes. Spoiler alert: not great! It triggers sometimes, but you can’t really rely on it. No matter what Apple’s marketing tells you.

    David Pierce
    David Pierce
    On today’s Vergecast: RIP Stadia, all the Amazon things, and slidable PCs.

    We also spent some time wandering through the CEDIA conference, compared Kindles, expressed our deep love for remote controls, and perused the r/stadia subreddit. Stadia is dead, but here’s hoping the controller isn’t.

    David Pierce
    David Pierce
    Gen Z really loves YouTube, and likes TikTok less than you think.

    Morning Consult has a new survey of Gen Z’s favorite brands, and they’re both hilarious and on-brand. YouTube, Google, Netflix and Amazon are the top four. (M&M’s coming in at #5!) But the one that jumped out to me most was that TikTok didn’t crack the top 40: Gen Z likes TikTok a lot more than older generations, but they apparently don’t even like it as much as Lunchables or Subway?

    David Pierce
    David Pierce
    Is TikTok going to be the one to get live-streaming right?

    Twitter blew it with Periscope. Facebook and Instagram never figured it out. Twitch is great, but only in certain niches. But TikTok seems to be the closest thing going to a truly live social network, as today’s hurricane footage has definitely made clear.

    Google is trying to reinvent search — by being more than a search engine

    The internet is more visual and more interactive than ever. So how does the world’s biggest search engine change to fit the times? By redefining the whole idea.

    David Pierce
    David Pierce
    David Pierce
    A fun read on the early days of the Kindle.

    Amazon’s event is starting in a few minutes, and somehow I ended up on this 2009 story about the early days of the Kindle, and the reading revolution it promised but didn’t quite deliver:

    This was what they were calling e-paper? This four-by-five window onto an overcast afternoon? Where was paper white, or paper cream? Forget RGB or CMYK. Where were sharp black letters laid out like lacquered chopsticks on a clean tablecloth?

    Amazing how much has changed... and not changed.