Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge People seem to like Apple’s new iPad Pro, with its better screen and impressive design. People also seem to really hate Apple’s new ad in which the company crushes centuries of creative tools because, in the future, there is only iPad. And after all the iPad stuff this week, people are still asking the same question: what is the point of the iPad? On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk about the week in Apple news: the iPad Pro, the iPad Air, the Pencil Pro, the Magic Keyboard, the new apps, and much more. We also wonder if any of this changes anything about w ..read more

Image: Supergiant Games Now that the Hades II early access period has started, opening up a more complete but still early build of the game, I’ve been fighting against the urge to gorge myself on it — and losing. To be fair, I have a weak spirit since I loved the first Hades, which introduced me to the concept of roguelikes, a genre I avoided out of disdain for repetition. Also, and this is the biggest factor in my spiritual war against the game: I have a Steam Deck, which makes not playing the game all but impossible. Slight spoilers for Hades II follow. Hades II is Steam Deck-verified with a ..read more

Apple’s noise-canceling AirPods Max are $100 off for the first time since December.Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Not too long ago, it seemed like every retailer was offering a steep discount on Apple’s AirPods Max. Then, suddenly, they all stopped. For the past few months, we’ve rarely seen the AirPods Max drop below $500 — that is, until this week. Now, for the second time this year, you can grab Apple’s on-ear headphones at Amazon for $449.99 ($100 off), which matches one of their best prices to date. Even if they are still stuck with Apple’s aging Lightning port, there’s no better pai ..read more

The Riffgat offshore wind farm, around 15 kilometers north of the island of Borkum.Photo: Getty Images Data centers and offshore wind farms could prove to be a perfect pair as AI grows increasingly energy-hungry. Many of the companies racing to roll out new generative AI tools have also made big commitments to rein in their greenhouse gas emissions. A rush of new AI data centers could throw those climate goals off — unless they find a clean source of energy. Conveniently, some of the quirks with AI data centers make them a good match for wind farms at sea. And the offshore wind industry, which ..read more

OpenAI has allegedly been trying to poach Google employees to work on its own search product offering.Illustration: The Verge OpenAI is reportedly gearing up to announce a search product powered by artificial intelligence on Monday that could threaten Google’s dominance. That target date, provided to Reuters by “two sources familiar with the matter,” would time the announcement a day before Google kicks off its annual I/O conference, which is expected to focus on the search giant’s own AI model offerings like Gemini and Gemma. This new rumor tracks with earlier reports from both Bloomberg and ..read more

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has been talking about plans for an Xbox mobile gaming store for a couple of years now, and the company now plans to launch it in July. Speaking at the Bloomberg Technology Summit earlier today, Xbox president Sarah Bond revealed the launch date and how Microsoft is going to avoid Apple’s strict App Store rules. “We’re going to start by bringing our own first-party portfolio to [the Xbox mobile store], so you’re going to see games like Candy Crush show up in that experience, games like Minecraft,” says Bond. “We’re going to start on the web, an ..read more

Photo by Kena Betancur/VIEWpress Now that they’ve got an extra $100 billion worth of premium airwaves and Sprint no longer nipping at their heels, how can the big three cellular carriers continue to consolidate and grow? Well, T-Mobile and Verizon “are in discussions to carve up U.S. Cellular,” The Wall Street Journal reports. The report suggests this is about harvesting even more wireless spectrum; my colleague Allison pointed out in 2022 that US Cellular “tends to offer service where some of the major carriers don’t.” (It would certainly be nice for T-Mobile and Verizon customers to have be ..read more

Illustration: The Verge Apple plans to start its foray into generative AI by offloading complex queries to M2 Ultra chips running in data centers before moving to its more advanced M4 chips. Bloomberg reports that Apple plans to put its M2 Ultra on cloud servers to run more complex AI queries, while simple tasks are processed on devices. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Apple wanted to make custom chips to bring to data centers to ensure security and privacy in a project the publication says is called Project ACDC, or Apple Chips in Data Center. But the company now believes its ..read more

Image: Mob Entertainment The horror puzzle game Poppy Playtime is getting a live-action film adaption. Developer Mob Entertainment says it struck a deal with the entertainment company Legendary after fielding “several competitive offers.” Transformers producer Don Murphy and filmmaker Susan Montford will develop and produce the adaptation. Poppy Playtime is a first-person adventure game, where players take on the role of a former toy factory worker who returns to their now-abandoned workplace. As players explore Playtime Co., they have to solve several puzzles while trying to avoid Huggy Wuggy ..read more

Image: Apple Apple has apologized after a commercial meant to showcase its brand-new iPad Pro drew widespread criticism among the creative community. In a statement provided to Ad Age, Tor Myhren, Apple’s vice president of marketing, said the company “missed the mark.” “Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world,” Myhren told Ad Age. “Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry ..read more