Handhelds
Latest Andru Edwards Videos
Kindle Unlimited Is Now Kindle+
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Handhelds, Artificial Intelligence,
Your Kindle Unlimited subscription has a new name and a pile of audiobooks in it, for the same $11.99 a month you were already paying. That part is a real upgrade. It is also a catalog where some of the narrators don't exist.
Amazon flipped the switch on October 22. Kindle Unlimited is Kindle+ now, the price and the features carry over, your reading history and bookmarks and notes come with you, and you can still borrow 20 titles at a time with no due dates. The Canadian signup page says it flatly: "Kindle Unlimited is now Kindle+." Amazon's reason for the rename is that the catalog has grown past ebooks and it wanted a name that, in its words, "works across every marketplace."
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How Amazon Designed a Tablet for the AI Age with Panos Panay (Video)
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Videos, Artificial Intelligence,
Would you pay $499 for an Amazon tablet? I took that question to Panos Panay in the smart home lab at Amazon's headquarters, and his first answer was to put the new Alexa Tablet 12 Pro in my hands and tell me to hold it. The plan behind it took two and a half years: Move off Fire to core Android so the apps people want are there, then build Alexa into the whole product.
Click to continue reading How Amazon Designed a Tablet for the AI Age with Panos Panay (Video)
The OLED iPad mini Is Reportedly Close. Not Every Rumor About It Is Solid.
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Handhelds, Rumors,
The iPad mini has the smallest and most stubborn fan base Apple has. It is the tablet people read on in bed, wedge into a jacket pocket, and keep for five or six years because nothing else is quite that size. It also goes the longest between updates, which means every mini rumor gets picked over harder than it deserves.
This round is the biggest in years. Reporting from Bloomberg, plus a scatter of supply chain leaks, points to a new iPad mini as early as October with an OLED screen, a much faster chip, and a sealed body that survives a splash. Apple has announced nothing, and these claims are nowhere near equally solid, so here they are sorted by how much weight the sourcing carries.
Click to continue reading The OLED iPad mini Is Reportedly Close. Not Every Rumor About It Is Solid.
The Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 Console Is Gorgeous and Game-Free
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Video Games,
Nintendo finally made a Switch 2 that doesn't look like every other Switch 2. The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition, shown off at Tuesday's Zelda Direct, is a black console with gold Triforce patterns across the back, dark green Joy-Con 2 controllers with Triforce detailing (and, per Siliconera, Zelda pixel art on the back of the right one), and a black dock with one big gold Triforce on the front. The wrist straps match too. It launches October 29, one week before the Ocarina of Time remake arrives on November 5.
It's the first special-design Switch 2 hardware since the system came out last year, and the first time the Joy-Con 2 has shipped in a color other than black. I'd have bought it for the dock alone. Then I read the fine print.
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Switch 2 Owners Are Getting Banned, and Nintendo Isn’t Saying Why
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Video Games,
Turn on your Switch 2 and find that Nintendo Switch Online is gone, the eShop won't load, and the screen is showing error code 2124-4508. Nintendo's own support page is blunt about what that means: the console has been permanently banned from connecting online for breaching the user agreements. A growing number of Switch 2 owners have been staring at that message since Saturday, and plenty of them say they have never run a pirated game.
The complaints piled up on the r/NintendoSwitchHelp subreddit over the weekend. One owner posting as OutlandishnessHour37 bought a console through the Indonesian marketplace Tokopedia back in June. Another, MathPrestigious, bought from Yodobashi Camera in Japan and got banned two days after taking it home. On the Chinese social app RedNote, at least 150 people have posted about losing network features. The reports stretch across Asia, Europe and the United States, though a pile of social posts is not a reliable way to measure how big a problem actually is.
Click to continue reading Switch 2 Owners Are Getting Banned, and Nintendo Isn’t Saying Why
Zelda Gets a 40th Anniversary Direct Tuesday, Switch 2’s Winter Slate Lands Wednesday
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Announcements, Handhelds, Video Games,
Nintendo is running two shows next week, and the first one belongs entirely to Link. The Legend of Zelda gets a half hour to itself on Tuesday morning, then the company comes back Wednesday to talk about what you can actually buy before the end of the year.
The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct airs Tuesday, September 8 at 7am PT / 10am ET and runs roughly 30 minutes. A general Nintendo Direct follows Wednesday, September 9 at the same time, running about 45 minutes and focused on Switch 2 games launching this winter. Both stream on Nintendo's YouTube and Twitch channels.
Nintendo’s Free Switch 2 Update Crams Eight Mario Kart Players Onto One Screen
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Video Games,
Picture your TV chopped into eight little rectangles, each one holding a friend, a kart, and a red shell with their name on it. That's now something you can do in your living room.
Nintendo pushed out a free Switch 2 update for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with no real warning, and the big change is local split-screen for eight players, up from a cap of four. This is a game that shipped on Wii U in 2014 and again on Switch in 2017. Twelve years on, it's still growing new features.
The Switch 2 Costs $500 Today, and $450 Is Probably Gone for Good
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Video Games,
Consoles are supposed to get cheaper as they get older. Starting today, the Nintendo Switch 2 costs $50 more than it did yesterday, and yesterday was the last day you can buy one at the price it shipped with.
Nintendo of America moved the standard Switch 2 from $449.99 to $499.99 on September 1, 2026. That is the plain box: console, two Joy-Con, no game. If you have been circling this purchase since launch, you have until stores close.
Click to continue reading The Switch 2 Costs $500 Today, and $450 Is Probably Gone for Good
The iPad mini Is Finally Getting the One Upgrade That Actually Matters
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Handhelds, Rumors,
The iPad mini has always been the tablet you actually hold. Not the one you prop on a stand to type an email, but the one you read on in bed, thumb through on the train, or hand to a kid in the back seat. And for two years it has been coasting on the same screen it has had since forever. That is about to change.
Apple is reportedly planning to ship a new iPad mini this October, and for once the update is not just a spec bump. This is the mini's biggest overhaul in roughly five years, and the headline feature is the one thing that matters most on a device you stare at from six inches away: the display.
Click to continue reading The iPad mini Is Finally Getting the One Upgrade That Actually Matters
What Apple Silicon Means for the Mac w/ Guest Rene Ritchie!
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Corporate News, Features, Handhelds, PC / Laptop,
Apple is about to swap out Intel chips for their own self-made processors in the Mac line, and Rene Ritchie joins us to talk about what this means, and how it will change the Mac for the average consumer. We also discuss iOS 13.6, the moves Microsoft is making with the Xbox Series X and xCloud, along with a lightning round of tech topics!
LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW
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- New AirPods Features in iOS 14
- Why Apple Silicon will Make Macs Better
- Rene Ritchie on YouTube
- Geared Up on YouTube
- Jon Rettinger on YouTube
- Andru Edwards on YouTube
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