Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge It was going to happen, and then it wasn’t going to happen, and then it happened. The United States Congress passed a bill that would either ban TikTok or force it to be sold, and President Joe Biden signed it. So... what now? TikTok could sue, and win, and go back to normal. TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, could just decide to shut it down and move on. Or it could sell TikTok US. Those are really the only three outcomes, and we have a year or less to figure out which it’s going to be. On this episode of The Vergecast, we discuss all the possible outcomes for TikTok ..read more

Illustration: The Verge One more app joins the passwordless future we’ve been promised. WhatsApp says it’s now rolling out support for passkeys in the iOS version of the app. With the feature enabled, users of Meta’s encrypted messaging app can use iPhone biometrics for login — that is, Face ID or Touch ID — or their phone’s passcode. WhatsApp already supports unlocking its iOS app with one of these options, but this takes that a step further. Passkey support comes to the iPhone version several months after Meta started distributing it to Android WhatsApp users in October. Passkeys are suppose ..read more

Illustration: The Verge Apple has been quiet about its plans for generative AI, but with the release of new AI models today, it appears the company’s immediate ambitions lie firmly in the “make AI run locally on Apple devices” realm. Researchers from Apple released OpenELM, a series of four very small language models on the Hugging Face model library, on Wednesday. Apple said on its Hugging Face model page that OpenELM, which stands for “Open-source Efficient Language Models,” performs very efficiently on text-related tasks like email writing. The models are open source and ready for developer ..read more

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Spotify submitted a new version of its iOS app that should give users in the European Union in-app pricing information for subscriptions made outside of Apple’s payment system — provided the update doesn’t get stonewalled by Apple again. According to TechCrunch, the latest version of the app doesn’t contain a direct link to subscription plans on Spotify’s website, something the company hoped would allow it to skirt the 30 percent cut Apple takes on subscriptions made via the App Store. Instead, EU users will be directed to manually visit Spotify’s website via a ..read more

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge iPhone users can finally enjoy retro gaming emulators without jailbreaking their phones ..read more

Demand for Vision Pro is falling.Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple is reportedly cutting its Vision Pro headset shipment forecast for the rest of the year due to cooling demand. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo writes that Apple cut orders for the Vision Pro even before it launched outside of the US. His sources claim that Apple now expects to sell only around 400,000 to 450,000 units in 2024, compared to what Kuo says was a “market consensus” of 700,000 to 800,000. Demand for the $3,500 Vision Pro dropped much lower than the company was expecting. Facing the unanticipated drop in s ..read more

Apple’s next event will be all about iPads.Image: Apple Apple has gone and announced a spring event for May 7th at 7AM PT / 10AM ET. While the company didn’t say what the event is about, the Apple Pencil in its graphic suggests we’re finally about to hear about new iPads — but which ones? Well, almost certainly OLED iPad Pros, which we’ve been hearing about for months, but the company might also announce a new iPad Air in two sizes for the first time. Rumors have also circulated in the last few months about a new Apple Pencil and updated Magic Keyboard accessories that would give iPad Pro owne ..read more

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge DolphiniOS, a fork of the popular Dolphin emulator for Nintendo Wii and GameCube games, has confirmed that it’s not coming to the Apple App Store even though emulators are now supported. In a post on Friday, the developer behind the emulator says it’s because Apple doesn’t allow DolphiniOS to use its underlying performance-boosting tech. As explained by developer OatmealDome, DolphiniOS — along with other Wii and GameCube emulators — uses something called Just-in-Time (JIT). This is a compiler that “translates” the GameCube and Wii’s PowerPC-based code into a ..read more

Anker’s versatile charging orb functions as both a power strip and a StandBy-ready phone stand.Image: Nathan Edwards / The Verge A cluttered desk can easily hijack your focus, which is why Anker’s Qi2-certified MagGo Magnetic Charging Station (8-in-1) can prove helpful. It’s small, but it can quickly clear up space by replacing a good chunk of your chargers while doubling as a sturdy phone stand. It normally runs $99.99, but now until 4:45PM PT / 7:45PM ET on April 28th, you can pick up the charger at its all-time low of $69.99 ($30 off) at Amazon and Anker (with promo code WS7DV2GPRWSL). The ..read more

Photo by Ulrik Pedersen / DeFodi Images via Getty Images It looks like Apple’s foray into streaming soccer could be getting even more ambitious. According to a report from The New York Times, Apple is close to a deal with FIFA — the sport’s global governing body — for worldwide rights for an expanded version of the Club World Cup that will take place in the US in 2025. The Times says that the deal could be worth upward of $1 billion and that an official announcement could happen sometime this month. If the deal goes through, it would mark Apple’s second major broadcast partnership in the sport ..read more