Reading Tim Cook’s thoughts on what the metaverse is, I couldn’t stop thinking about Hank Green’s tweet from January. And I think he’s right. The always-on VR metaverse? No thanks. The non-VR metaverse? That’s just... life now!
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
