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How to file and pay your 2024 taxes online

The holidays are over, a new year is here, and along with all the various upheavals that we are facing (including some possible changes in tax law), most of us have to deal with our annual income taxes. Sorry about that.

Tax day this year falls, for most of us, on the traditional April 15th. There are exceptions: for example, if you live in California and in an area that’s been affected by wildfires, you are eligible for tax relief and an extended deadline of October 15th.

Despite the stress that many of us feel at the thought of tackling our yearly taxes, try not to worry — we’re going to list some resources that are available so that you can prepare your taxes. As always, it might not be a bad idea to start working on those taxes as soon as possible to avoid any last-minute panic. And whether you’re a full-time worker dealing with a single W-2 or a freelancer / gig worker getting a series of 1099s, the fastest way to pay the piper these days is to do it online.

On the positive side of the ledger, if you live and work in one of 25 states, there’s now a new way to figure out your taxes: via the IRS’s own Direct File program. We’ll get to that in a moment.

To begi …

Read the full story at The Verge.

TikTok traffic is recovering, but it’s still not back in app stores

TikTok’s traffic is almost back to normal despite its delayed return to US app stores, according to Cloudflare Radar data seen by CNBC. The “DNS traffic for TikTok-related domains” is around 10 percent lower than the levels before its abrupt shutdown, David Belson, Cloudflare’s head of data insight, told CNBC.

To compare, TikTok’s traffic dipped as much as 85 percent when the app went dark in response to the US divest-or-ban law, Cloudflare reported at the time. TikTok started coming back online on January 19th, but the app has remained unavailable on Google Play and the Apple App Store ever since.

The shutdown also affected other apps owned by TikTok parent company ByteDance, including Marvel Snap, CapCut, and Lemon8. Even though all three apps have restored their services in the US, they aren’t available in app stores, either — and there’s no indication when they might return. Many users unable to download the apps have resorted to methods like using a VPN or changing their Apple ID region to Canada in an attempt to get them back.

President Donald Trump has since signed an executive order delaying TikTok’s ban, but the app still isn’t in the clear just yet. That legal uncertainty might be what’s making Apple and Google hesitant to bring TikTok and other ByteDance-owned apps back to their stores.

Dell is making everyone return to office, too

Wide view of Dell corporate office
Hybrid and remote work will no longer be an option for Dell employees. | Sergio Flores / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Dell is the latest tech company to announce it’s ending its hybrid and remote work policy. Starting March 3rd, Dell employees will have to show up in person five days a week.

In an email obtained by Business Insider, CEO Michael Dell writes that “all hybrid and remote team members who live near a Dell office will work in the office five days a week. We are retiring the hybrid policy effective that day.”

“What we’re finding is that for all the technology in the world, nothing is faster than the speed of human interaction. A thirty second conversation can replace an email back-and-forth that goes on for hours or even days,” Dell writes.

Despite this mandate, Dell also continues to sell remote work solutions, noting that remote work offers “benefits such as flexibility, reduced commute times, and cost savings for employees, while employers can access a broader talent pool, reduce overhead costs, and increase productivity.”

Technically, Dell had already required its sales, manufacturing, and lab engineers to return to office. The email cites the “new speed, energy, and passion” from those teams as a reason for implementing it company-wide globally. For previously remote workers who don’t live near an office, Dell says they can continue to work remotely.

Dell is not the only company to issue return-to-office mandates in recent months. AT&T, Amazon, Stellantis, and JP Morgan have all either started or announced return-to-work policies this month. Meanwhile, President Trump also issued an executive order last week requiring all federal employees to return to office, noting that all government departments “terminate remote work arrangements.”

Sam Altman’s Stargate is science fiction

Donald Trump, Masayoshi Son, Larry Ellison, and Sam Altman standing around a podium with a green circuit-print overlay.

Stargate is a staggering power grab.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has spent the past year seeking an absurd amount of computing power to train the company’s AI models — one report says Japanese officials literally laughed at the amount of electricity he demanded. The stakes were clear: without massive computing resources, OpenAI risked losing ground to tech giants like Google and Meta, who’ve spent years building their AI infrastructure.

But last week, this impossible dream became a press release. Altman secured a mind-boggling $500 billion commitment to build OpenAI’s data center empire, called Stargate, thanks to backing from SoftBank, Oracle, and the Abu Dhabi fund MGX. The White House added its stamp of approval in a press conference, with President Donald Trump flanked by Altman, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. (The name references a 1994 sci-fi movie, where the stargate is an ancient transportation portal controlled by an all-powerful ruler.)

If it materializes, Stargate could effectively be the largest private computing infrastructure project in history. It would mean a network of massive computing complexes — each spanning hundreds of ac …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Trump’s first round of tariffs is almost here

An image showing shipping crates with arrows indicating a price increase.

Electronics, avocados, vegetables, cars, tractors, crude oil — these are some of the things that could soon get more expensive for US consumers. Under President Donald Trump’s proposed plan, goods coming in from Mexico and Canada will be subject to a 25 percent tariff beginning on February 1st. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has also said Trump was “very much still considering” tariffs on China on the same day. As of late Thursday, the specifics of these plans were still up in the air.

Sweeping tariffs were one of Trump’s marquee campaign promises leading up to the election in November. He’s previously threatened up to a 60 percent tariff on goods from China, a 100 percent tariff on goods from Mexico, and even a 200 percent tariff on John Deere products imported into the US. Despite this, Trump failed to levy any tariffs on day one of his presidency, with Bloomberg reporting on Thursday that his administration lacked even concepts of a plan. His first round is now supposed to hit goods from Mexico and Canada, the two largest trade partners for the US.

In 2022, around $1.8 trillion of goods and services moved between countries under the current United St …

Read the full story at The Verge.

How DeepSeek crashed the AI party

The DeepSeek story contains multitudes. It’s a story about the stock market, whether there’s an AI bubble, and how important Nvidia has become to so many people’s financial future. It’s also a story about China, export controls, and American AI dominance. And then, somewhere in there, there’s a story about technology: about how a startup managed to build cheaper, more efficient AI models with few of the capital and technological advantages its competitors have.

On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk about all these angles and a few more, because DeepSeek is the story of the moment on so many levels. Nilay and David discuss whether companies like OpenAI and Anthropic should be nervous, why reasoning models are such a big deal, and whether all this extra training and advancement actually adds up to much of anything at all. (Nilay has a long comparison to Bluetooth, in case that helps you guess where we land.)

After that, we go through our email inbox ([email protected]) and the Vergecast Hotline (866-VERGE11), and talk about some of your responses to last week’s question about how people use AI. Thank you so much to everyone who wrote in and called! There a …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Adobe’s head of product is joining A24 to make movies

Swapping product for movie production.

Behance co-creator Scott Belsky has announced he’s leaving his position as Adobe’s Chief Strategy Officer to become a partner at independent film production company A24. Belsky initially joined Adobe when it acquired the Behance artist portfolio platform for $150 million in 2012. 

Following a brief departure in 2016, he rejoined Adobe in 2017 to lead its product development across Creative Cloud and has since become one of the design software giant’s most respected and recognizable figures. Belsky played a key role in launching Adobe’s lineup of Firefly generative AI products, which debuted its first AI video model in October last year.

Belsky was also a driving force behind Adobe’s failed attempt to acquire rival product design platform Figma for $20 billion in 2023. The merger agreement was squashed under pressure from UK and EU regulators, requiring Adobe to pay Figma a $1 billion termination fee.

“After 7 years since returning to Adobe… i’ll be shifting gears over the coming months + jumping into the fast-evolving world of filmmaking and storytelling (a longtime passion),” Belsky said in his farewell message. “It’s hard to leave a team, mission, and customer base I care for deeply, but the Adobe team, strategy, and pipeline has never been stronger.”

Belsky says he will be relocating to New York City and will remain in the “extended family of Adobe” as a “future tech partner.” According to Adobe chief marketing officer Lara Balazs, Belsky’s A24 partner role will see him building “tools and resources” to help support filmmakers’ creative visions.

“I’m excited to see how his experience developing technology will translate to the entertainment industry,” Balazs said on Adobe’s blog. “We have always partnered with studios around the world, and we have already begun conversations with Scott and A24 on how the two companies can partner to progress the art of storytelling.”

Dreame’s L20 Ultra hybrid robovac and mop is over half off

The robovac / mop hybrid makes cleaning almost effortless, with enough smarts that it can automatically remove its own mop pads.

Looking for a way to speed up your weekly cleaning? It might be worth investing in a robot vacuum that can also mop up your floors, like the Dreame L20 Ultra. The hybrid robot vacuum / mop is one of our favorites, and has currently dropped to an all-time low price of $614.99 ($785 off) at Amazon when you clip the on-page coupon.

The L20 Ultra’s packed with all kinds of features that make it easy to clean up quickly. It’s got 7,000Pa suction for sucking up dirt deep in your carpets, while its mop is capable of extending itself to reach areas that are usually hard for robovacs to clean. Once it’s finished with your floors, the bot is capable of automatically removing its own mop pads to keep your carpets dry. It’s also smart enough that it can automatically empty its own dustbin and refill its water tanks, so you don’t need to spend a lot of time cleaning the bot itself up.

The hybrid bot also boasts AI-powered obstacle avoidance so it can move around stuff on the floor like shoes. Plus, it’s compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri Shortcuts so you can control it with just your voice for an almost hands-free cleaning experience.

Disney’s Star Wars hotel jumps from deep space to office space

Picture this, but with more desks and a breakout area.

Disney’s extraordinarily expensive Star Wars hotel isn’t coming back. The building that housed the Galactic Starcruiser is being converted into office space, scuppering hopes that it could be reborn or repurposed into a new interactive attraction.

The Wrap reports that the hotel will be converted into an office for Walt Disney Imagineering, the creative arm of the company responsible for its theme parks, retail, and cruise ships. The team located there will reportedly work on upcoming expansions for Florida’s Walt Disney World resort, including a Latin American section of the Animal Kingdom and a Monsters Inc. area within Hollywood Studios.

Galactic Starcruiser was an immersive hotel experience set in the Star Wars universe, where the minimum stay cost $4,800 for two people over two nights. It opened in March 2022 but ran for just a year and a half, shutting in September 2023. It returned to headlines in May 2024 when YouTuber and theme park superfan Jenny Nicholson’s four-hour video on its “spectacular failure” went viral, amassing 11 million views.

Disney park fans had hoped that the Starcruiser might be repurposed for a new attraction or interactive experience, with reports that Disney was playtesting a multi-hour theatrical dinner set in the hotel’s former lobby. The fact that it requires shuttles to shepherd guests to the hotel site from the rest of the park is one reason that idea might have been deemed unfeasible.

Dr Disrespect’s Midnight Society studio shuts down before releasing its first game

Streamer Dr Disrespect in a blurred crowd.
Meanwhile, YouTube is allowing Dr Disrespect to remonetize his account.

Midnight Society, the game studio co-founded by Dr Disrespect (real name Herschel “Guy” Beahm) has shut down, killing the first-person shooter title it was developing. The studio made “significant” layoffs in September after terminating its relationship with the controversial streamer in June due to “inappropriate” messages he exchanged with a minor

Within hours of the closure, YouTube, which also took action against Beahm in June by demonetizing his account, decided to reinstate the streamer’s ability to make money on Google’s video platform. The decision was made after “careful review of the channel’s recent activity,” YouTube spokesperson Boot Bullwinkle told The Verge. “If there are further violations, we’ll take appropriate action.”

Midnight Society was co-founded in 2021 by Beahm, former Call of Duty creative strategist Robert Bowling, and former 343 Industries lead sandbox designer Quinn Delhoyo.

“We are actively seeking other game studios that would be interested in offering employment opportunities to our talented team members,” Midnight Society said in its shutdown announcement on X. “We express our sincere gratitude to each and every one of our community members and deeply sorry we were unable to reach our ultimate goal.”

pic.twitter.com/26DK9pWCaR

— Midnight Society (@12am) January 30, 2025

The “ultimate goal” mentioned in Midnight Society’s departing message was Deadrop — a free-to-play vertical extraction shooter that was initially funded by selling NFTs at the height of the blockchain gaming frenzy. Deadrop was expected to release in 2024, and was the only game being developed by Midnight Society.

This crowdfunded E Ink QWERTY phone isn’t vaporware after all

The Minimal Phone is even a Swiftie.

When the Minimal Phone was first announced this time last year, you might have been forgiven for thinking it was vaporware. But one year — and many delays — later, the world’s first Android phone with both an E Ink display and a physical QWERTY keyboard has begun shipping to backers.

In broad strokes, the Minimal Phone looks a bit like a BlackBerry, with a wide body and a squat screen perched above its streamlined QWERTY keyboard. We’ve seen phones like this before. What makes it stand out is the screen itself, which is a monochrome E Ink panel at a whopping 600 x 800 resolution.

Despite using E Ink tech, the Minimal Phone runs Android 14, so the only apps you’re giving up are those that really can’t run on the sluggish display and basic hardware — you won’t be popping many headshots in CoD: Mobile, I fear. Access to all your Android apps might put the lie to Minimal Company’s promise of a “distraction-free” phone, but the company suggests that the E Ink panel still “encourages you to use them more mindfully.” On the smartphone-sized Boox Palma e-reader we found most Android apps “just awful to use,” which proved a neat way of removing their temptation to distract, so the company might be right after all.

While the phone is basic in a few other ways — its 16 megapixel camera looks unlikely to impress, and it’s limited to 4G LTE connections — it packs a few unexpected perks too. NFC payments, a fingerprint sensor, and Qi wireless charging are all supported, and the inclusion of dual-SIM support, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and expandable storage ticks off most of the old-school smartphone nerd wishlist.

Originally set to ship to Indiegogo backers in August 2024, the Minimal Phone slipped to September, then December, and finally started heading out last week. The company says it’s shipping phones in the order they were purchased, running “from now until March.” You can also order the phone now for delivery in March, starting at $399, a $100 discount on the official retail price.

Its chief competition comes from TCL, whose Nxtpaper phones deliver a regular Android phone experience with the option to flip a switch and enable an E Ink-like monochrome mode. There’s no physical keyboard though, so unless Clicks keyboard cases expand to fit more phones, the Minimal Phone is the only game in town for those who demand QWERTY and E Ink in the same handset.

Nvidia’s RTX 5090 is out of stock because it was barely in stock

Nvidia warned of stock shortages earlier this week, and now its launch of the $1,999 RTX 5090 yesterday is being branded a “paper launch” after people camped outside retailers only to find a handful of cards available, if any at all.

Reddit users have been tracking inventory for RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 cards at Micro Center locations across the US, with some stores opening on Thursday with no RTX 5090 cards at all. The Tustin, California Micro Center store seems to have received the most stock, but other stores reportedly had 10 or less RTX 5090 cards. While Nvidia’s RTX 5080 was a little easier to purchase on launch day, cards rapidly went out of stock at retailers like Best Buy and Amazon.

One Reddit poster claims to have secured an RTX 5090 after three days waiting in line, and others have posted purchase vouchers that were handed out to people in line at a Miami Micro Center. The overwhelming amount of posts are from people complaining about the launch and lack of stock, though.

Gamers Nexus claims that one of the biggest system integrators in the US only received a single RTX 5090 on launch day, before a smaller shipment arrived later in the day. Another big system builder reportedly received no units and third one received 20 RTX 5090s that it sold in pre-built machines in a matter of minutes.

Many retailers are now simply listing preorders for RTX 5090 cards, with Scan in the UK warning that some cards aren’t due in stock until the end of May — four months after the launch date. Naturally, such low stock levels in the face of high demand means there are scalpers selling RTX 5090 cards on eBay for $5,000 or more. YouTuber JayzTwoCents even found an RTX 5090 on sale for $5,800 on Facebook, after he signed the card at the Tustin Micro Center store earlier in the day.

We reached out to Nvidia to comment on the RTX 5090 launch issues, but the company refused to comment beyond its previous warning about stock shortages.

Dr Disrespect’s Twitch ban, explained

Dr Disrespect — aka Herschel “Guy” Beahm — was one of Twitch’s top streamers until he was suddenly banned in June 2020. Now, we know what happened. As confirmed in a lengthy statement from Beahm himself, he sent private messages on Twitch to a minor that he says “sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate”:

Were there twitch whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017? The answer is yes. Were there real intentions behind these messages, the answer is absolutely not. These were casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate, but nothing more. Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual. 

The statement followed former Twitch employees explaining in social media posts and speaking to The Verge about why Twitch suddenly broke things off with Beahm, which was based on the messages he sent using its now-removed Whispers feature.

Midnight Society, the game studio Beahm co-founded after the ban, has terminated its relationship with the streamer, and accessories company Turtle Beach has also ended its partnership with Beahm.

Here’s the latest news on Dr Disrespect and the reasons for his Twitch ban.

Google’s Gemini AI app is getting faster with Flash 2.0

Google announced Thursday that the Gemini app is getting its Gemini 2.0 Flash AI model. The upgraded model “delivers fast responses and stronger performance across a number of key benchmarks, providing everyday help with tasks like brainstorming, learning or writing,” the company said in a post.

The change is rolling out to Gemini’s web and mobile apps and will be available to all users. Google also says that you’ll still be able to use Gemini 1.5 Flash and 1.5 Pro for “the next few weeks.”

The company first introduced Gemini 2.0 in December and promised that it was “working quickly” to get it in its products. At the time, it launched an experimental version of Gemini Flash 2.0 to Gemini users.

On Thursday, Google also said that Gemini’s image generation capabilities now use the newest version of the company’s Imagen 3 AI text-to-image generator. According to Google, the model “delivers richer details and textures” and “follows your instructions with greater accuracy.”

Meta warns that it will fire leakers in leaked memo

Moments after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s all-hands comments to employees were widely leaked, a company executive warned in an internal memo that leakers will be fired.

“We take leaks seriously and will take action,” Meta’s chief information security officer, Guy Rosen, said in an internal memo I’ve seen. “When information is stolen or leaked, there are repercussions beyond the immediate security impact. Our teams become demoralized and we all waste time that is better spent working on our products and toward our goals and mission.”

Rosen goes on to say that Meta “will take appropriate action, including termination” if it identifies leakers and that “we recently terminated relationships with employees who leaked confidential company information inappropriately and exfiltrated sensitive documents.”

During today’s all-hands meeting, Zuckerberg told employees he would no longer be as transparent due to leaks. “We try to be really open and then everything I say leaks,” he said. “It sucks.”

In a separate post on Meta’s internal version of Facebook for employees, CTO Andrew Bosworth posted a link to my story about Zuckerberg’s all-hands meeting t …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Mark Zuckerberg to employees in leaked all-hands meeting: ‘buckle up’

Mark Zuckerberg.

Tensions were high inside Meta ahead of Mark Zuckerberg’s first all-hands meeting of the year.

Employee-submitted questions for the CEO touched on a couple of big themes: concerns about his announcement that “low-performers” would be let go on February 10th, his MAGA-fueled changes to Meta’s content moderation policies and DEI programs, and his comment to Joe Rogan about wanting more “masculine energy” in the workplace. “Are the changes we’re seeing (in any way) influenced by the new U.S. president?” asked one employee ahead of the internal meeting. “If so, why are we making changes based on these factors?”

With a lot of the rank and file clearly on edge, Zuckerberg made sure there would be fewer opportunities for drama during today’s Q&A. Before it started, HR notified employees that “we will skip questions that we expect might be unproductive if they leak.” For the first time, the most upvoted employee questions were no longer ranked for everyone to see and comments were disabled during the livestream.

Before jumping into the Q&A, Zuckerberg addressed the changes head on: “We try to be really open and then everything I say leaks. It sucks.”

“W …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Polestar’s new polar EVs can race through the snow

The Polestar 4 gets ski racks.

Polestar is building one-of-a-kind versions of its EVs that are ready for whatever the winter brings. The company took the long-range, dual motor versions of its newest vehicles, the Polestar 3 SUV and Polestar 4 coupe (with performance packs), and turned them into rally-style vehicles that can rip through snowy terrain. The company is also resurrecting its Polestar 2 Arctic Circle one-off, which it showed off in 2022, to complete the family.

The specially tuned Polestar 3 and 4 come with newly-released 20-inch white OZ Racing Rally Legend wheels sitting on Pirelli Scorpion Winter 2 tires for cold on-road driving. But when taken onto the snowscape, Pirelli’s Scorpion All Terrian Plus with 300 4-mm studs are used. They also get custom 3-way adjustable dampers with external gas reservoirs.

Although these vehicles are lifted for the snow, it’s not by much. The Polestar 3 is given just 40mm to its ride height, and the Polestar 4 is lifted by just 20mm. But the vehicles do get Rally-style mud flaps, Swedish gold tow hooks, Recaro Pole Position bucket seats, Stedi Quad Pro LED front spotlights, and front strut braces. Polestar also gave the three EVs a coat of yellow paint that, along with the wheels, makes them look like the Mustang Mach-E Rally.

All three Arctic Circle Polestars will be shown off at the FAT International Ice Race in Austria on February 1st. Other snowy conversions will be there too, including Audi with its snowpocalypse-ready Q6 E-tron Off-road.

YouTube Premium’s 4x speed and other experimental features now available to subscribers

After announcing some new experimental features for YouTube Premium subscribers earlier this month — and that multiple experiments can be tested at once — the company has added one it promised was on the way: the ability to watch videos at 4x speed, as reported by Android Police. I’m personally a 1.5x to 2x sicko when it comes to YouTube videos and podcasts, but 4x is an absolutely blistering speed that’s more apt for skipping past the cruft than consuming info at a faster clip.

The faster playback is just one of a few experiments you can currently try (with some OS and time restrictions):

  • 4x playback speed (iOS and Android only, until February 26th)
  • Shorts Smart Downloads (iOS only, until February 19th)
  • Shorts Picture-in-Picture (iOS only, until February 19th)
  • High Quality Audio for 256kbps sound (iOS and Android only, until February 22nd)
  • Jump Ahead Web (for web browsers, until February 5th)

In similar just-get-to-the-point-already fashion, Jump Ahead gives web users a button to automatically skip to “the content they care about faster” instead of carefully scrubbing through a video. But let’s be honest, this will probably be a button to jump past all the intros and other bloat.

An animated illustration showing how Jump Ahead works on a web browser.

The faster playback speed and Jump Ahead features seem the most useful — if you’re already a YouTube Premium subscriber who doesn’t have to sit through ads, the next frontier is skipping through all the cruft. Though higher quality audio is always welcome. And a picture-in-picture mode for Shorts could be convenient, but as was mentioned on a recent Vergecast, why would you want YouTube to automatically fill your phone’s storage with tons of Shorts videos?

Meta’s Ray-Bans smart glasses sold more than 1 million units last year

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed sales figures for the company’s Ray-Ban smart glasses for the first time, telling employees that over 1 million units were sold in 2024. In remarks during an all-hands meeting seen by The Verge, Zuckerberg posed a question to staff about whether sales would go from 1 million to as much as 5 million units in 2025.

“I think one of the questions for us is, are we going to go from 1 million this year to 2 million? Are we going to go from 1 million to 5 million?” Zuckerberg said. Since the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses first launched in 2023, they have gradually added new features, such as multimodal AI to process what you’re seeing, hearing, and reading, along with live AI and translations.

“We basically invented the category and our competitors haven’t really shown up yet,” Zuckerberg said during the meeting. “I think we’ll probably start seeing some of that maybe a little later this year, maybe next year, but we just have this wide open field right now to run and basically introduce as many people as possible to Meta AI glasses and we should take that opportunity.”

Meta declined to comment for this story.

Meta is expected to take an …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple reports best-ever earnings even as iPhone revenue slips

As has become an annual tradition, Apple just reported blockbuster earnings for the company’s most recent holiday quarter. “Today Apple is reporting our best quarter ever, with revenue of $124.3 billion, up four percent from a year ago,” CEO Tim Cook said in a press release. Revenue was up nearly across the board for the company’s Mac, iPad, and services divisions.

But the numbers show a slight dip in year-over-year iPhone revenue, seemingly confirming that Apple Intelligence isn’t doing much to drive iPhone sales. The same goes for that new Camera Control button, I suppose. Cook tried to dismiss the notion that Apple Intelligence isn’t compelling people to upgrade in an interview with CNBC. “During the December quarter, we saw that in markets where we had rolled out Apple intelligence, that the year-over-year performance on the iPhone 16 family was stronger than those markets where we had not rolled out Apple intelligence,” he said.

The standard iPhone 16 models are a particularly excellent value this year, which isn’t always the case. So that could also factor into the slightly lower revenue if fewer people are opting for the Pro variants.

Apple has taken a cautious approach in rolling out its AI-powered features, having only just turned them on by default with this week’s release of iOS 18.3. Cook again confirmed that Apple Intelligence will become available in more languages in April. So far, the tools are convenient and helpful, but not game changing. And those promised improvements to Siri can’t come soon enough.

This tends to be Apple’s most crucial quarter of the year for two reasons. It includes the all-important holiday shopping season, and since the iPhone 16 lineup was on sale for the entire three-month duration, this is our best indication yet of demand for Apple’s latest phones. The company also released several new Macs near the end of last year including a redesigned, much smaller Mac Mini and refreshed MacBook Pros. Revenue for Apple’s wearables business, which includes the Apple Watch and AirPods, was also slightly down compared to the year-ago quarter.

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