Are you hoping that now that the case between Apple and Epic has kind of come to an end that you will be able to see Fortnite back on iOS? Think again. This is because according to a tweet by Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney, it seems that Apple isn’t interested in Epic’s requests for a reinstatement until the legal battle comes to an end and no more appeals can be made.

For those who missed the news, a couple of weeks ago, the courts issued a ruling on the Apple VS Epic lawsuit. It kind of ruled in both their favor, where Apple is now forced to allow developers to include links to outside payment platforms, and where Epic was forced to pay Apple $6 million in damages.

Just last week, Epic agreed with Apple that we would play by the same rules as everyone else. pic.twitter.com/WOxsbnAFXE

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) September 22, 2021

Epic has since appealed their loss, but in the meantime have also asked Apple to allow Fortnite back into the App Store. However, according to the reply from Apple’s legal team, it seems that Apple isn’t interested in Epic’s request for a reinstatement, claiming that the company had demonstrated “duplicitous conduct in the past”.

They did state that they will only consider requests for reinstatements once the court’s judgement has come final and is no longer appealable. Sweeney doesn’t seem pleased by this as he notes in his tweet that the appeal process could take as long as five years.

Whether or not it will drag out five years remains to be seen. It is possible that maybe Apple and Epic could come to some kind of settlement and agreement before then, but for now, iOS gamers should probably not hold their breaths for Fortnite’s return anytime soon.

One of the perks of being a YouTube Premium subscriber is that you can save videos for offline watching. Unfortunately, this particular perk is only for the mobile app version of YouTube on iOS and Android, so for desktop users, you get pretty much all the other perks and features except for this.

However, that could change soon. It seems that YouTube is currently testing out allowing users to save videos for offline watching on desktop. This is actually pretty cool and the videos will stay downloaded and viewable offline as long as your computer has an active internet connection at least once every 30 days, so unless you’re planning to be offline for more than a month, this shouldn’t be an issue.

According to YouTube’s website, it seems that this is a feature that will only be available until the 19th of October. Like we said, this is a test so the test is expected to conclude a little under a month from now, but assuming it goes well, it should eventually be made available to all Premium subscribers.

Also, YouTube notes that the feature will only work in browsers like Chrome, Edge, or Opera. There’s no mention of Firefox or Safari, so if you’re using either of those two browsers, you’re out of luck for now.

When it comes to video conferencing software, Zoom really exploded in popularity in 2020 during the pandemic and continues to be one of the first picks for work or school. However, just because it’s popular doesn’t necessarily mean it’s for everyone. If you value your privacy, then Brave might have something for you.

For those unfamiliar, Brave is the developer behind the Brave Browser, a privacy focused browser that’s an alternative to some of the other options out there. The company has since expanded their offerings and is now launching Brave Talk, a new video conferencing platform that they claim is just as private as its browser.

According to Brave, “Many other video conferencing providers, including Zoom, monitor calls, metadata, and images, and the records of that data can be sold or shared without user consent. Brave Talk users can enable multiple layers of encryption on calls, so an eavesdropper cannot listen in on users’ calls, and our servers don’t save metadata, so calls, images, and activities are never recorded or shared without user consent.”

Brave Talk will not be a separate download or a separate piece of software, but rather it will be available as a service directly within the browser itself. For the most part it is free to use for one-on-one calls and also offers features like groupwatch, YouTube livestreaming, and more. There is a premium version priced at $7 a month for those who might require more robust features.

To check it out, head on over to the Brave Talk website using any modern browser to start using the service.

Microsoft just launched the Surface Laptop Studio, a mobile version of the Surface Studio desktop computer primarily aimed at Creative users.

The most visible difference with potential competitors is how the screen goes from laptop to tablet mode, and the images below are worth a thousand words.

Having the display rest above the keyboard is an exquisite way to achieve this, in my opinion, and you don’t have keyboard keys resting on the table’s surface.

There’s also an intermediate “Tent” position that could be cool for watching movies (with quad-speakers audio), playing games, or working with a mouse and keyboard. Small magnets make sure that the display will remain in place until the user moves it again.

The display’s dual-hinge is a concept popularized by ACER in the ConceptD Ezel series, but it seems like a good idea to take this route for a Creative laptop.

The primary downside of the Surface Laptop Studio is the overall thickness. Its base does not occupy the whole width and height of the chassis, perhaps to make it appear thinner than it is, but the 18.94 mm thinness is very acceptable.

That creates an excellent opportunity to store the magnetic Surface Pen ($129.99) in a location that won’t be easily dislodged. I have not tested it, but I wonder if the shape makes it more (or less?) comfortable.

Design aside, does it have the chops to be a great Creative laptop? The mere presence of an NVIDIA RTX 3050 Ti GPU is a good sign because having a fast discrete GPU is a requirement in this category. If you need certified CAD/pro drivers, there’s an RTX A2000 SKU as well.

The CPU options are the Intel i5-11300H or i7-11370H, both of which are 35W TDP processors that are more powerful than the typical 15W+ processors used in thin and light laptops. If you have heavy multithread workloads, opt for the i7.

Thanks to the dual Thunderbolt 4 ports, you could easily create a fixed workstation with a TB dock such as the Anker PowerExpand Elite to connect more monitors and external storage.

Overall, this new Surface Laptop Studio (official page) is a good addition to the Surface Book 3 as it covers a very different use case. I suspect that it has a much better Creative experience than Surface Book 3, and for simple sketching, the new Surface Pro 8 (or an iPad Pro 12.9) could be your go-to device.

The bulk of drones are unmanned vehicles that are controlled remotely. However, we have seen some ideas floated that suggests that maybe one day in the future, manned drones could be a new form of personal vehicle that we can look forward to. It seems that that future is kind of here over in Cambodia.

In Phnom Penh, a group of students have created their own manned drone that actually works. Inspired by the desire to beat the city’s notorious traffic jams, this drone can fit a human up to 60kg in weight and can fly as high as four meters for 10 minutes. We know, 10 minutes probably won’t get you very far, but considering that this is the effort of students who don’t have the resources of a huge tech company, it’s very impressive.

It seems that this drone was also a labor of love where it took them about 3 years to get to this point, while also spending as much as $20,000 in the process. However, they are far from done and the students estimate that they need an additional two more years before it is fully ready and tested. It is also estimated that by the end, the project could end up costing $40,000.

In addition to beating traffic jams, the students envision that it could also be used to fight fires, where it could be used to help transport water or carry the hose up to higher floors in a faster and more efficient manner.

Google has released renders of their upcoming Pixel 6 smartphones, but renders don’t always match what we see in real life. If you are curious as to what the Pixel 6 might look like in real life, then you might be interested to learn that a video shared by someone on Discord and then posted by @thisistechtoday has shown off the upcoming Pixel 6 Pro in an unofficially hands-on video.

The video shows off the Pixel 6 Pro in a black/grey finish with a glossy-looking back, which presumably could be glass. We have to say that based on this video, the phone actually looks really good and we can’t wait for Google to officially launch it, which last we heard could take place this October.

I think this may be the first hands on video leak of a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

FYI: The logo would indicate that this is likely an early production test unit, so that means there may be some differences between what you see here and the actual production device. #teampixel pic.twitter.com/4QSvdktqA7

— M. Brandon Lee | THIS IS TECH TODAY (@thisistechtoday) September 21, 2021

In addition to showing off the phone’s design, subsequent leaked photos also show what appears to be the CPU configuration for the phone. As you might have heard, the handset is expected to be powered by Google’s new Tensor chipset, and the specs show that the Tensor chipset has eight cores.

Two of which are Cortex-X1 cores clocked at 2.802GHz, two Cortex-A76 cores clocked at 2.253GHz, and four Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 1.80GHz. Benchmarks of the chipset have shown it to be a little underwhelming, but hopefully the finalized version will be more impressive.

While all-in-one (AIO) desktops don’t have the same customizability compared to more traditional desktop systems, there is an appeal to them, especially for those who prefer keeping a sleek, clean, and minimalist setup.

If you are in the market for a new AIO desktop, then perhaps HP could have something for you in the form of the HP Envy 34. This is an AIO desktop system that comes with a massive ultrawide 34-inch 5K display with a resolution of 5120×2160. This is huge and even bigger than most ultrawides we’ve seen in the market today.

Under the hood, it’s no slouch either as HP has equipped it with processors as powerful as Intel’s 11th gen Core i9 processor, and with GPU options like NVIDIA’s RTX 3080. Apart from its internal hardware, the external hardware is pretty cool too. There is a 16MP webcam that can be magnetically detached and repositioned around the frame of the display, and there is also a speedy 15W wireless charger built into the base of the display’s stand.

Other features on the back include four USB-A ports, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-A ports on the side along with a USB-C port, and a headphone/microphone port. There are also four RAM slots for memory expansion, and also two M.2 SSD slots so that you can upgrade the storage yourself later.

As for pricing, the HP Envy 34 does not come cheap at a starting price of $1,999, but given its features, it’s actually not too bad. It will begin shipping next month if you’re keen on picking up one for yourself.

When Snapchat rolled out Stories, it became so popular that other social media platforms like Instagram decided to implement something similar of their own. This later expanded to Facebook and WhatsApp. Even Twitter got in on the action, but it was a short lived feature and has since been retired.

However, the latest platform to hop on board this bandwagon comes in the form of Slack. This is rather interesting because the Stories feature has always been seen as more of a personal enjoyment kind of feature, whereas Slack is seen more as a tool for enterprise communications, but whose to say it won’t work?

The feature, dubbed Clips, was originally revealed last October where the company said that they were experimenting with the idea, and now it looks like it is finally here. While you probably won’t use it the same way as Snapchat or Instagram’s Stories, it might be useful as it could be used to drop quick updates to keep your colleagues and managers up-to-date on what you have done.

It might also be useful for people working remotely in other timezones, where you could leave Clips to let them know what has been done, what needs to be done, and so on. The feature is being rolled out as we speak and should be available to all paid teams this fall.

Apple’s MacBook trackpads are actually pretty huge, but this is because they support gestures so it needs a bit of extra room to make it more comfortable to use. However, it seems that these trackpads aren’t big enough for Apple’s liking because as discovered by AppleInsider, Apple has a patent that could expand on it.

We’re not talking about a larger trackpad, but rather the patent suggests that the entire lower half of the MacBook could double as a trackpad surface (except the keyboard area, presumably). This means that users could essentially touch on anywhere around the lower half of the laptop to register an input.

The patent also suggests that the sides could act as secondary and tertiary trackpad areas that can offer up functionality when needed. In a way, it might be similar in concept to the Touch Bar where it could switch up functions depending on the app being used, so for example when browsing the web, the left and right sides could act as its navigation.

That being said, there’s no telling if Apple plans on making this trackpad patent a reality. The company has tried to reinvent the way we use laptops like with Touch Bar, but unfortunately while it was promising on paper, it simply did not live up to the hype.

The other day, a listing on Amazon suggested that the company could be working on new Kindle Paperwhite e-readers. It looks like Amazon did not waste any time confirming it as they have since officially announced brand new Kindle Paperwhite e-readers that come in a regular version and a Signature Edition.

In case you missed the previous report on the leak, both the regular Kindle Paperwhite and the Signature Edition will share a lot of similarities in terms of specs and features. Both devices will feature a 6.8-inch display and will have IPX8 water-resistance, so you don’t have to worry about it getting wet or falling into water if you’re reading it by the pool.

Both models will also feature an upgraded processor, which according to Amazon will make page turns about 20% faster compared to older models. Both have also adopted the USB-C standard, doing away with micro USB for good. The main difference is that the Signature Edition will come with 32GB of storage, support wireless charging, and has a built-in auto-brightness sensor.

The Kindle Paperwhite base model will be going for $140 while the Signature Edition will set you back $190, so head on over to Amazon’s website if you’d like to pick up either model.

While Apple’s products like the iPhone and Apple Watch come with health features, these are more related to physical health like how far you’ve run, how many calories you’ve burnt, and so on. It is a bit lacking when it comes to mental health, although Apple does include apps such as Breathe and Mindfulness.

However, sometimes we might be suffering from mental health issues without even knowing about it. For example, there are varying degrees of depression that some might just attribute to just having a bad day.

That being said, it seems that Apple could be working on making some of these issues easier to detect. A report from the Wall Street Journal (paywall) has revealed that Apple is apparently working on ways to detect mental health conditions using data from devices like the iPhones and Apple Watch. This will come in the form of monitoring sleep patterns, how people type, heart and respiration rates, and even facial expression analysis.

Apple is currently researching the effectiveness of this system and should it prove to be useful and effective, it could eventually become a feature in future Apple products. It is said that Apple’s efforts are still in the early stages and it could be a few years before we know the conclusion of the studies, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

If you were excited about the release of iOS 15 and plan on upgrading to it, maybe you might want to consider holding off a bit. This is because according to a thread on Reddit, it seems that the update comes with a weird bug that prompts iPhone users that their storage is almost full, even though it isn’t.

According to a post by u/bowtiesareswaggy, “What the title says, and this is even after clearing more of my storage. I have 16.34 GB available out of 64 GB. Tapping the warning also results in no reaction whatsoever from the OS. This was a problem through every iOS 15 beta version I was on, and now I am on the RC version and it is still not fixed.”

Other users are chiming in with similar issues where they say that they have been given the same warning even though many of them have a lot of space leftover. Some users have tried resetting their phone settings but it seems that did not solve the issue. Some have even tried erasing their phones completely and factory resetting it, but to no avail.

That being said, this seems to be more annoying than it is breaking. We imagine you should still be able to go about your business and can safely ignore the message. Apple hasn’t acknowledged the issue yet but hopefully they are aware of it and that they’ll be issuing a fix soon.

It has been about a week since Apple’s iPhone 13 event took place and we’re sure that leading up to the event, many were trying to figure out how to watch it online. A quick Google search would have pulled up the answers, but unfortunately for some, they found their answers elsewhere, which ultimately led to them being scammed.

According to Zscaler’s report, the bitcoin scammers had actually created a website to mimic Apple’s website that they then embedded with old interviews with Apple’s CEO Tim Cook. It then displayed a message saying that Apple was apparently giving away 1,000 bitcoin and that to participate, users had to send their own bitcoin.

Basically, it promised that for every bitcoin that the victim sent, they would get double of it back, and apparently it was convincing enough where the scammers actually managed to make away with $69,000 worth of bitcoin.

As AppleInsider notes, there are some mistakes on the website that should have given away that something’s not right, but we suppose unless you’re looking out for a scam, it is possible that some people could have missed these clues. We’re not sure if they will be able to get their stolen bitcoin back, but hopefully people will be more careful in the future about the websites they visit and these types of online “offers”.

During the pandemic, many movie studios and production companies tried to take a different approach to their releases. This is because places like cinemas had to be shut down to curb the spread of the virus, so what these companies did was to release their movies on streaming services.

For Disney, they tried releasing it through Disney+ where those who wanted to watch it on day one could pay a premium to watch it on the day of release. However, as the world is slowly getting back to normal, Disney seems to be reverting back to how they released movies in the past, but the good news is that if you’re a Disney+ subscriber, you won’t need to wait too long.

The company has announced that its latest Marvel movie, Shang-Chi, will be released on Disney+ come 12th of November. This will be completely free for Disney+ subscribers, meaning that if you can wait a couple more months, you’ll be able to watch it without having to pay extra on top of your Disney+ subscription.

Shang-Chi is actually the first Marvel movie in 2021 to be released in cinemas first. Prior to it there was Black Widow which adopted a simultaneous launch, which then led to a contract dispute between the movie’s lead actress, Scarlett Johansson and Disney.

With the release of iOS 15, Apple has made some changes and tweaks to some of the existing features in iOS. One of those changes is to Do Not Disturb, which in previous builds was rather simple and straightforward – enable it and your calls and notifications will be silenced until you turn it back on.

However, iOS 15 “upgraded” it into a new Focus Mode that gives users more control over their notifications, which is a good thing, but at the same time it appears that Apple has removed a feature from Do Not Disturb that quite a few users on Reddit have expressed their dissatisfaction over.

Basically the older version of Do Not Disturb gave users the option of silencing calls and notifications only when their phone was locked. This meant that while Do Not Disturb was enabled but the user was still actively using their phone, they would still be able to get notifications as long as their phone was unlocked.

However, this option seems to have vanished in iOS 15 as there does not appear to be an equivalent setting. For some users, this is a deal breaker because some users have opted to keep their phone in Do Not Disturb mode permanently.

The closest thing we could see to replicating that feature would be to allow specific apps an exemption to Do Not Disturb mode, but then again it’s not quite the same. We’re not sure if Apple is listening and if they may bring the old feature back, but until they do, maybe it’s time to just get used to this.

Carrying around a physical card to show proof of vaccination is troublesome because these cards can be lost, damaged, or even forged. If you prefer keeping a digital version of your vaccination card, you might be interested to learn that with iOS 15.1, users will be able to add their vaccination cards to the Wallet app.

iOS 15 was released just yesterday and at the moment, iOS 15.1 is currently in beta which means that it might be a while before it is available to the public, but this could be a feature worth looking forward to.

However, as per Apple’s announcement, this will only work if your state or country’s health organization uses the SMART Health Cards specification. “Organizations that issue SMART Health Cards will soon be able to use a new button to let users know that they can securely download and store their vaccination information in the Health app and quickly add and present it from Wallet.”

This means that those who use a different specification might not be able to take advantage of this feature, at least for now.

Apple also adds, “Users can choose to share verifiable health records stored in the Health app with approved third-party apps requesting this information, like airlines, event venues, and other businesses that facilitate in-person interactions. And in an upcoming software update, they can also choose to add verifiable COVID-19 vaccination records as a vaccination card in Apple Wallet to present to businesses, venues, and more.”

In 2018, Facebook unveiled their first video calling device called the Portal. The company later followed up with more Portal devices that came in various form factors and sizes, and now it looks like Facebook is pushing ahead as they have since announced two brand new Portals – the Portal Go and the Portal Plus.

Starting with the Portal Go, this is a 10-inch gadget whose selling point would be its portability. It can be powered by a battery which means that you will be able to use it wherever you go as long as you have an active internet connection. It does retain features like automatic panning, focusing, and zooming, despite it being more portable, and a built-in shutter for privacy.

As for the Portal Plus, this is a 14-inch device that’s essentially an upgrade over the original Portal. However, Facebook seems to have ditched the swivel display that allows it to go from portrait to landscape view, so if you’re not too fussed about that, then we suppose it’s not really a big deal.

Given that this is a Facebook product, it’s not surprising that there is support for platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, but in case those aren’t your jam, it will also work with other video conferencing software like Zoom, Webex, BlueJeans, and GoToMeeting, and come December there are plans to expand support to Microsoft Teams.

The new Portal Go will be priced at $199 and the Portal Plus at $349 and are being planned for a launch on the 19th of October, but pre-orders are currently open on Facebook’s website.

Apple has officially released iOS 15. One of the main changes to iOS 15 is to the mobile Safari browser, where it will now support browser extensions. If this is something you’ve been looking forward to, then you might also be pleased to learn that password manager 1Password has released its extension for Safari.

For those unfamiliar, 1Password is a password manager that helps remember passwords and login information for websites and services. It can also help users automatically fill in those details when they’re browsing the web, and with its new Safari extension, it will be easier than before.

According to the developers of 1Password, “In-page suggestions allow you to access your items exactly where you need them. For sites that have complicated sign-in forms, we use our on-device machine learning to detect what’s happening and automatically fill the password for you. And if you use two-factor authentication, we automatically fill the codes, so you don’t need to copy them to your clipboard.”

To take advantage of the new extension, all you need to do is ensure that you have the latest version of 1Password on your mobile device, and iOS 15 installed, and you should be good to go, so go ahead and update your iPhone or iPad if you haven’t done so already.

If you want to access your email on an Apple device, the company does include email apps on its iPhone, iPad, and Mac computers. However, they also do have a web-based client for those who prefer using that. However, for the longest time ever, the web version has kind of been neglected, at least until earlier this year.

In June, Apple unveiled a redesign of the iCloud Mail interface. This would essentially bring the web interface closer to what users are familiar with on iPhones, iPads, and Mac, giving it a cleaner and more modern look. The good news is that if you’ve been looking forward to this feature and trying it out, it is now available to all.

Previously, the changes were in beta so not everyone could use it, but now that it is available to all, you should be able to see the new changes Apple made. You don’t have to do anything on your end, all you need to do is log into your iCloud account and you should be able to see it.

In addition to the new design, Apple has also rolled out other new features which includes Hide My Email and Custom Domains, features that Apple had previously announced at WWDC 2021 earlier in the year. This will be available to iCloud+ users, which are basically users who are currently paying for iCloud storage.

There are services like Spotify that offer users a free streaming tier if they don’t want to pay for Premium. It comes with some limitations and ads, but other than that, it’s free. Other services, like Apple Music, offer a free trial, after which users have to pay a subscription if they want to keep using the service.

Netflix, on the other hand, has never offered users a free tier before, but that is changing. The company has announced that they will now be offering users in Kenya a free streaming tier. There will not be ads, although it will be limited to mobile-only (Android), and according to Variety, only a quarter of Netflix’s catalogue will be available.

The idea here is to entice users and convince them that what Netflix has to offer is good enough for them to upgrade to a paid subscription to unlock everything. According to Netflix, “If you’ve never watched Netflix before — and many people in Kenya haven’t — this is a great way to experience our service. And if you like what you see, it’s easy to upgrade to one of our paid plans so you can enjoy our full catalog on your TV or laptop as well.”

It’s an interesting move by Netflix and we have to wonder if maybe this could lead to Netflix exploring more subscription options in the future. That being said, we’d like to remind you that this is only available for Kenya, the rest of the world will have to keep using and paying for Netflix the regular way.