Verge Staff | The Verge

All the news about the iPhone Duo

2026-10-21T12:50:33-04:00

Apple has finally announced its long-rumored foldable: the iPhone Duo.

The new phone has a 5.4-inch outer display and a 7.6-inch inner display, a “nano‑texture” finish on the inner screen, and barely any visible crease. Instead of Face ID, it uses Touch ID on the power button. It has two cameras, a main lens and a wide-angle lens. Apple completely revamped iOS 27’s controls and apps for the foldable, including putting the dock on the side of the phone. And it has a flashy opening animation when you unfold the phone.

The iPhone Duo a big new bet from Apple, though one that’s a little late to the game compared to competitors like Samsung and Google. The phone isn’t cheap: it starts at $1,999 for the base 256GB model, and the prices only go up from there. Still, Apple said that preorder demand was “extraordinary,” so it could have a hit on its hands.

Here’s everything unfolding about the iPhone Duo.

All the news from Apple’s ‘Welcome Home’ event

2026-10-19T04:41:39-04:00

Apple’s October 13th launch event — given the tagline “Welcome Home” — is all about its efforts for the smart home.

The event was headlined by the debut of the HomeView, Apple’s first smart home display. It also launched a collection of smart home devices, including cameras, thermostats, and a smart lock, in partnership with other companies.

On top of the new device categories, Apple also refreshed two familiar ones. The HomePod Mini 2 was announced with support for Siri AI, and the Apple TV 4K also received a Siri AI-focused refresh.

You can follow along with all of our coverage right here.

Why the LeapPad couldn’t survive the iPad

2026-10-11T09:20:00-04:00

For multiple years, the hottest toy in the United States was a book. But not just any book: a smart book that could play sounds and respond to taps and help kids learn to read. It was the kind of gadget seemingly any parent could get behind, but it came with a high price — and some unexpected parenting questions.

On this episode of Version History, David Pierce is joined by The Verge’s Andru Marino and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy to explain how the LeapPad worked, why it was so enticing to both kids and adults, and why the company that made it could never quite follow it up.

We’re almost finished with our fifth season of Version History, all about the most iconic school tech. So far this season we’ve already dug deep into the stories of Oregon Trail, the original Chromebook, the One Laptop Per Child program, and those ubiquitous Texas Instruments calculators. If you missed any part of our season, check out the episodes here:

If you’re a Verge subscriber, you can also get access to Version History (and all our other podcasts) with no ads. All you have to do is visit your account settings.

If you want to know more about LeapFrog LeapPad’s history, here are some links to get you started:

From Wired: “LeapFrog’s Wild Ride”
From The New York Times: “LeapFrog Hopes for Next Hit With Interactive Reading Toy”
From The Wall Street Journal: A Tablet Children Can Grow Into

Everything announced at Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra event

2026-10-07T18:15:22-04:00

Microsoft just wrapped up a big Windows and Surface-focused keynote in San Francisco.

The biggest announcement was arguably the release details about the Surface Laptop Ultra, its new laptop that’s powered by Nvidia’s RTX Spark Arm-based chip. The machine will start at $2,599 for a configuration with an 8-core CPU, 24GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage, and it will be released on October 16th. The laptop also has built-in magnetic USB-C charging instead of the proprietary Surface Connect magnetic charging port. The Verge‘s Tom Warren published a deep dive all about the new laptop. Microsoft also announced that the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, a mini PC for developers, is available for preorder for $5,999 ahead of shipping in November.

In addition, Microsoft shared details about some updates coming to Windows, including “Hybrid Intelligence” features that lets Copilot use files on your Windows PC to take actions and a new search experience that lets you do quick actions from the search bar.

You can catch up with all of our coverage from the event right here.

Reverse-engineered games: All the news on video game decomps, recomps, VR and web and 3D ports

2026-10-21T10:49:54-04:00

It’s a wild time for retro gaming. Thanks to decompilations and recompilations of classic titles, those games are becoming unshackled from their proprietary code and original hardware to be ported to new devices or updated in ways to completely change the original game. Ever imagined skateboarding in Call of Duty? Or playing the original Halo right in your web browser, complete with multiplayer?

These are unofficial versions of games, so they may sit in a legal gray area. It seems unlikely that Nintendo, for example, is particularly happy about people finding ways to play The Legend of Zelda on non-Nintendo hardware. Many of these projects are also made with the assistance of AI, which, for some people, is a non-starter given ethical or environmental concerns surrounding the technology.

Below, you’ll find our coverage of gaming decomps, recomps, and all the other ways gamers are reverse-engineering games to go previously unimaginable places.

The forgotten Chromebook that started it all

2026-10-05T13:20:47-04:00

Google didn’t even call the first Chromebook a “Chromebook.” The Cr-48 had no interesting design and no bright logos – it wasn’t even designed to be a product you could buy. Instead, it was a portal to a big new idea about computers.

In this week’s episode of Version History, The Verge’s Nilay Patel and MKBHD’s Marques Brownlee join David Pierce to help explain the history of ChromeOS and Chromebooks, and discuss whether Google’s approach to computer hardware was the right one.

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This has been an exciting season of Version History, as we’ve been exploring the most iconic school tech. Last week’s episode explored Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child XO-1 and his goals for a global distribution. We’ve also talked to the lead game designer of The Oregon Trail and learned why everyone had to own a TI graphing calculator. If you missed these episodes, check out them out below:

If you’re a Verge subscriber, you can also get access to Version History (and all our other podcasts) with no ads. All you have to do is visit your account settings.

Version History has been nominated for a Signal Award! You can vote to help us win here.

If you want to know more about Cr-48 history, here are some links to get you started:

From The New York Times: “Chromebook From Samsung Has Its Head in the Cloud”
From PCMag: “The Google Chrome OS CR-48 Notebook: Hands-On”
From Ars Technica: “Nothing but ’Net: hands-on with the Cr-48 Chrome OS laptop”

Why OLPC’s $100 laptop never stood a chance

2026-09-27T08:28:24-04:00

The idea was big, exciting, and inspiring: What if we could get every kid in the world access to a computer? For a bunch of thinkers and executives in Silicon Valley, it felt like the way to fix everything. But the One Laptop Per Child initiative, and the XO-1 laptop designed to be given away, were both more complicated than anyone expected.

In the next episode of Version History, David Pierce is joined by The Verge’s Adi Robertson and tech journalist David Imel to figure out why OLPC didn’t work, whether there’s anything to learn from the XO-1’s innovative design, and if this kind of computer giveaway could ever succeed.

We’re halfway through the fifth season of Version History and we’ve been touring the educational tech icons in schools. If you missed hearing from the lead game designer of Oregon Trail or just how much The Verge’s Nilay Patel loved his TI-82 graphing calculator, check out those episodes here: :

If you’re a Verge subscriber, you can also get access to Version History (and all our other podcasts) with no ads. All you have to do is visit your account settings.

If you want to know more about OLPC history, here are some links to get you started:

From The Verge: OLPC’s $100 laptop was going to change the world — then it all went wrong
From New York Times: Taking the Pulse of Technology at Davos
From Gizmodo: OLPC Origins: US and Taiwan’s Hardware Lovechild
From Berkeley School of Information: Morgan Ames’ The Charisma Machine: A Deep Dive into One Laptop per Child

Meta Connect 2026: The biggest news and announcements

2026-09-30T19:09:32-04:00

Meta has wrapped up its Connect event keynote, and as expected, the show featured a lot of news and updates on the company’s AI and wearables. Muse, Meta’s recently-launched AI agent, was a big part of the event, with Meta announcing new features in the works and a Tamagotchi-like “Charm” device that’s set to ship before the end of the year. There were new Ray-Ban Meta glasses, including a pair without cameras, but the company didn’t do much to address the pushback over people using glasses to covertly record others. The show also had a big VR reveal: Meta VR Glasses, which pack all of the tech in a typical VR headset into a pair of lightweight glasses with an attached compute puck.

If you want to catch up on the keynote, you can scroll back through our live blog or watch the video replay on YouTube. And if you want to see all of our coverage from the event, read on.

The hidden monopoly behind your TI graphing calculator

2026-09-20T08:22:18-04:00

The same calculator has been on most kids’ back to school shopping list since the early 2000’s and the dominance of Texas Instruments’ calculator division goes back even farther.

In the next episode of Version History, David Pierce is joined by The Verge’s Nilay Patel and Victoria Song to tell the story of TI graphing calculators and how one company managed to take over the market and never let it go.

This is the second episode of the fifth season of Version History where we’re heading back to school. We’ve already talked about the perilous journeys of The Oregon Trail that many students experienced in the computer lab and over the course of the next few weeks we’ll talk about the One Laptop Per Child, Chromebook, LeapPad, and the overhead projector.

Here’s how to get every episode as soon as it drops:

If you’re a Verge subscriber, you can also get access to Version History (and all our other podcasts) with no ads. All you have to do is visit your account settings.

If you want to know more about TI Graphing Calculator history, here are some links to get you started:

From Washington Post: The unstoppable TI-84 Plus: How an outdated calculator still holds a monopoly on classrooms
From New York Times: State adding a tool for 8th grade math
From ProMarket: TI’s Calculator Monopoly Offers Lessons for Educators in the Age of Generative AI

Verge staffers react to the iPhone Duo: What we love and don’t love

2026-09-10T08:51:47-04:00

Apple has just announced its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo. The new phone has a 5.4-inch outer screen and a 7.6-inch inner screen, two back cameras, Touch ID for authentication, an IP68 rating, and all sorts of slick software tricks to make iOS feel more at home on the new device. Preorders start on October 16th ahead of availability on October 23rd, and it starts at $1,999 for 256GB of storage.

It’s a huge announcement for Apple, and we have many feelings about it. Here’s our gut reactions to the phone. And let us know in the comments what you think!

The Duo name is good

I think iPhone Duo is the perfect name for Apple’s foldable. Two screens, Duo. Two back cameras, Duo. (I imagine a future version will get three, but right now we have two.) Duo is a concise three letters, putting it in line with other memorable Apple monikers like Air, Pro, Max, and Neo. Though somewhere at Microsoft, I am sure someone is fuming. —Jay Peters, senior reporter

It’s too expensive

I’ve never wanted a new iPhone more. As an iPad Mini stan, it is the ideal device for me. The size, the form factor, the multitasking possibilities. But I won’t be buying it. It’s just too expensive. [Ed. note: The phone starts at $1,999.] —Jennifer Tuohy, senior reviewer

Bye-bye, iPad Mini

The Apple Pencil support makes the Duo an iPad Mini killer and the perfect on-the-go sketchbook for digital artists. —Kevin McShane, editorial director, audio & video

It’s the opposite of what I need and I’m mad that I want it

A folding phone sounds great, and I dig the form factor of the iPhone Duo. As my eyes get worse, I want a bigger phone, but I don’t want to carry a bigger phone. But if I’m real with myself, I don’t need to spend more time looking at my screen, and I don’t want to downgrade my camera system either. I am a bad photographer who has fast-moving kids and puppies, and I’m not willing to give up the telephoto lens on my 17 Pro. Maybe I’ll get some reading glasses. —Nathan Edwards, senior reviews editor

Disrupting TikTok?

If Apple takes foldables beyond niche, the new 1.4:1 aspect ratio (a far superior ratio!) might change how content creators operate. Seriously, that is a far more reasonable aspect ratio, especially for portraits, and, strangely, it might be the thing that I’m most excited about with the Duo. —Marina Galperina, senior tech editor

Apple is selling me on the passport shape

I wasn’t a big fan of the short and stout foldable look when I saw Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, but it’s starting to grow on me. The iPhone Duo looks like it’s comfortable to hold in one hand (which could mean no more dropping my phone on my face while lying down), and its thin profile makes it look pleasant to carry around in a purse. —Emma Roth, news writer

Love the bigger size, but can’t stop thinking about a crease

I find myself using my iPhone 15 Pro Max or iPad more and more for watching TV shows and movies, so having a portable screen that unfolds to something larger is so enticing to me. But I can’t stop worrying about a visible, distracting crease as I fold and unfold it over months of use. I know my eyes (and brain) will attempt to focus on it no matter how slight it is. Maybe the crease will be completely indistinguishable even after over a year, but a minimum of $2,000 is too much for me to take a chance. —John Higgins, senior reviewer, TVs and audio

Apple and Samsung had the same idea

The Duo is similar to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 in more ways than just its passport-ish size and shape. Both phones have prioritized solid core performance but use more basic rear camera setups that distinguish them firmly from the companies’ Pro and Ultra models. They’re a close match in price, too, with the Duo only $100 more. That leaves space in the market for Android manufacturers like Xiaomi to come in with higher-specced foldables that place more of an emphasis on photography, battery life, and pro features, leaving Apple and Samsung to make the mainstream play. —Dominic Preston, news editor

What will it look like in Europe?

I live under EU regulations so I’m going to wait and see how the AI standoff unfolds and what features won’t be available outside the US (or won’t actually ship until later) and how many of my third-party apps are optimized for that folding display. I like the Duo in concept, but I’m not spending over $2,700 on a half-baked idea that needs more time in the oven. —Thomas Ricker, deputy editor

Correction, September 10th: A previous version of the article referred to the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra as having a passport-style shape, when it is actually the Galaxy Z Fold 8.