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Richard Lawler

Richard Lawler

Senior News Editor

Senior News Editor

    More From Richard Lawler

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Who is Apple’s Next Top Design Star?

    Over at Bloomberg, Mark Gurman has summed up the state of Apple’s product design department now that the current lead hardware design, Evans Hankey, has said she plans to leave in a few months.

    Her departure comes just three years after Jony Ive’s exit, and it’s unclear who will step into the gap of managing the look and feel for iPhones, Macs, and everything else.

    After Ive’s departure, both groups were placed under the purview of Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer.

    Over the past few years, the team has lost the majority of senior designers who worked under Ive, with many of them going to his new firm, LoveFrom. That has now made it harder to replace Hankey, people with knowledge of the matter said. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this.

    With all credit to Dril, read this by Casey Newton in Platformer about the new Twitter Blue package:

    The existing version only had a little more than 100,000 active subscribers, Platformer has learned.

    Estimates showed that Twitter will lose about $6 in ad revenue per user in the United States by making that change, sources said. Factoring in Apple and Google’s share of the $8 monthly subscription, Twitter would likely lose money on Blue if the ad-light plan is enacted.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Happy N7 Day to those who celebrate.

    November 7th is Mass Effect Day, when fans look back at the ambitious, yet troubled space-faring franchise.

    For 2022, Bioware released this vague teaser of its in-development Mass Effect title. Digging into the audio of the teaser, some of our staff think it sounds like fan-favorite Liara T’soni, but you be the judge.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Green light.

    For 24/7 updates on the Elon Musk show, just bookmark our stream of related stories. In non-Elon news, quarterly earnings results are due today from ActiBlizz, Pfizer, Lyft, and Take-Two.

    Now, here are a few weekend updates you may have missed:

    Apple said COVID lockdowns at its factory in China “significantly reduced capacity” and could cause longer waits for new iPhone 14s.

    Mass layoffs may hit Meta this week.

    Lil Nas X brought a holographic Mech to open the League of Legends world championship.

    Everything that Matters for your smart home.

    SEMA’s most interesting electric cars and trucks.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Hey, who has the keys for this?

    I’m not saying that Elon Musk’s mass layoffs one week into owning Twitter were haphazard, poorly planned, and likely removed teams and individuals who were crucial to continuing development as well as just keeping things running.

    But if that were true, then they’d probably end up asking some of those people to come back less than 24 hours later. Enter Platformer editor and The Verge contributing editor Casey Newton.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    This might be all it takes to get Verified on Twitter.

    If you pay for Elon Musk’s new $7.99 per month Twitter Blue package, this could be the screen you’ll see offering a verified checkmark to go on your profile.

    Researcher Jane Manchun Wong uncovered this screen for the still-in-development feature, and reports indicate we’ll see it launch as soon as Monday.

    A screengrab of a “Manage Subscription” page in Twitter offering an “Upgrade available” to get a verified account.
    How to get a verified account.
    Image: Jane Manchun Wong (Twitter)
    TikTok is back after a brief outageTikTok is back after a brief outage
    Richard Lawler