Apps - The Verge

The best apps download superpowers to your smartphone. The Verge covers the new and noteworthy Android apps, iPhone apps, and games, highlighting great design, impressive utility, and novel features. If it belongs on your phone, you’ll find it on The Verge.

AI is booming on the App Store, and developers are taking advantage of it

Many high-ranking AI apps feel like an attempted cash grab, and it’s not easy to spot the trash from the treasure.

Jess Weatherbed

Dec 9|

Snapchat’s year-end recap arrives next week.

Emma Roth

Dec 9|

Vergecast

Our hottest and coldest 2025 takes

David Pierce

Dec 8|

The Installer gift guide, part two

Plus: A new app from Peloton, Spotify Wrapped is here, AI to-dos, and much more.

David Pierce

Dec 8|

Social Media

X gives Grok a new photorealistic AI image generator

Wes Davis

Dec 7|

Tech

Twos is a handy to-do list app with exactly the right amount of AI

David Pierce

Dec 5|

Gaming

Nokia’s classic Snake game is now a Nothing widget

Andrew Liszewski

Dec 4|

Andrew Liszewski Dec 4

Google Photos could soon streamline changing wallpapers.

Setting your phone’s wallpaper to the image you’re viewing in Google Photos is more complicated than it needs to be.

That could soon change, according to Android Authority, which discovered an update potentially coming to a future version of the app that adds a “Set as wallpaper” option to the toolbar that appears after tapping the three-dot menu button in the corner of an open photo.

Tech

The new Surf browser shows why everyone’s trying to connect AI to the web

David Pierce

Dec 4|

Google

Google Maps is now displaying Waze incident reports

Umar Shakir

Dec 2|

Tech

The company behind Arc is building a new AI web browser called Dia

Jess Weatherbed

Dec 2|

The 2024 Installer gift guide, part one

Plus, in this week’s Installer: my new favorite productivity tool, a new go-to portable mic, Recall is back, and much more.

David Pierce

Dec 1|

Apps

Craft 3 is shockingly close to my ideal productivity app

David Pierce

Nov 28|

Google

Google Chat’s new huddles make it even more like Teams and Slack

Wes Davis

Nov 27|

Apps

Mercedes-Benz now has an Apple Watch version of its mobile app

Andrew Liszewski

Nov 26|

Google

Google is inserting search links into webpages in the Google App now

Wes Davis

Nov 25|

Threads

Threads is testing the option to choose your own default feed

Chris Welch

Nov 25|

Two new tech documentaries you really need to see

Plus, in this week’s Installer: Teenage Engineering did it again, a super-minimal podcast app, open-ear headphones, and much more.

David Pierce

Nov 24|

Emma Roth Nov 21

LinkedIn’s live audio events are going away.

After hopping on the live audio bandwagon in 2022, LinkedIn has decided to discontinue the feature in favor of its livestreaming platform, LinkedIn Live.

Unifying Audio Events and LinkedIn Live | LinkedIn Help

[LinkedIn Help]

Threads

Threads’ algorithm will focus more on the people you follow

Jay Peters

Nov 21|

Apple

Apple Pay, Cash App, and other digital wallets will be regulated more like banks now

Emma Roth

Nov 21|

Wes Davis Nov 20

Apple will let iPhone users change their default tap-to-pay app soon.

The “Default Apps” section that Apple added to the iOS 18.2 beta in October now lets you pick a contactless payment default besides Apple’s Wallet app.

The new option, which Apple promised in August, is there in the just-released iOS 18.2 public beta 3. But 9to5Mac notes the change was present in the second beta, as well.

iOS 18.2 public beta 3 now available, here’s what’s new

[9to5Mac]

Reddit has recovered from an outage

Emma Roth

Nov 20|

Facebook

Messenger video calls will look and sound better — and add AI backgrounds

Wes Davis

Nov 20|

Windows

Google’s Drive app is now available for Windows on Arm

Wes Davis

Nov 20|

Chrome

Google fixes Chrome issue that broke text highlighting on some sites

Wes Davis

Nov 20|

Emma Roth Nov 20

Shazam has put a name to 100 billion songs.

According to Shazam, that’s equal to 12 songs named for each person on Earth.

Apple

Vision Pro’s viral Lapz app put on hold after F1 complaint

Emma Roth

Nov 20|

Fitness

Strava closes the gates to sharing fitness data with other apps

Richard Lawler

Nov 20|

Google

Google Lens will now help you decide what to buy in-store

Jess Weatherbed

Nov 19|

How to

How to record your screen on an Android device

David Nield

Nov 19|

Apps

DoorDash will let you import your grocery list from Apple’s Reminders app

Jay Peters

Nov 18|

Apps

Now Telegram’s mini-apps can run in full screen on your phone

Umar Shakir

Nov 18|

Here’s some cool stuff you can do with Bluesky

The social network has some unique and fun features to try.

Wes Davis

Nov 16|

Apps

WhatsApp now lets you save message drafts

Umar Shakir

Nov 15|

Tech

Snapchat makes it easier for parents to request their teen’s real-time location

Quentyn Kennemer

Nov 14|

Google

Google will let you search for products on Maps to help with holiday shopping

Jess Weatherbed

Nov 14|

Business

PayPal will let you pool money for group gifts and shared expenses

Jess Weatherbed

Nov 14|

Apple

Apple updates Logic Pro with new sounds and search features

Andrew Marino

Nov 13|

Andrew Liszewski Nov 13

Amazon has made it easier to sideload books onto Kindles from Macs.

The company recently updated its Send to Kindle for Mac app with support for transferring books and other documents to Kindles with a USB cable. The feature is limited to the Kindle Scribe and “2024-released Kindle devices” but is compatible with Macs running Intel or Apple processors. Previously, Kindle users had to rely on third-party apps like Calibre or Android File Transfer.