Even with burnout, overwhelm, budget cuts, hiring freezes, waves of redundancies and everything else in 2024, there’s still little regulation in the US to stop employers tapping workers to respond to requests either at their desk or through their smartphones and laptops at home.
(Of course, France is showing us all up, having introduced a right-to-disconnect policy back in 2017. Those pesky, utterly correct French…)
A month after taking full ownership of Hulu last November, Disney started beta testing integration with Disney+. Today, Hulu on Disney+ is officially out of beta, making it easy for subscribers to access content for both services. It’s also a way for Disney to push its Hulu bundle, which starts at $9.99 a month with ads.
Apple’s 35th annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is June 10 to 14. WWDC is typically a software-centric event, so it’s highly likely we’ll get our first look at iOS 18, iPadOS 18, tvOS 18, macOS 15 and watchOS 11. It may also be a good chance for Apple to upgrade its visionOS software for Vision Pro.
We had the first wave of changes and tweaks to Apple, Google and other big tech companies’ policies and services just before the EU’s sweeping Digital Markets Act (DMA) took a harder line against monopolistic behaviors and practices. See: third-party app stores with Apple, the option to pay for Facebook (haha!), the ability to choose your own default browser, search engine, and more.
According to Rabbit, the first batch of US pre-orders will ship on March 31. But stay patient, as it’ll take a few weeks for the devices to get to their destinations. The company estimates the first R1 orders will be in customers’ hands “around April 24.”
Good morning. I hope you're having a good weekend so far.
The Department of Justice and more than a dozen states have filed a lawsuit against Apple in the US federal court, accusing the company of violating antitrust laws. It says Apple’s hardware and software products are largely inaccessible to competitors, making it difficult for rivals to compete and for customers to switch to other companies’ products.
This spring, clean your gadgets. Clean your tech. Be less gross in 2024. It's one of my aims. Alongside our anniversary stories this month, we’re also in a spring-cleaning frame of mind. We’re cleaning AirPods and digitally decluttering the PC.
Dyson is finally bringing its latest robot vacuum to the US and Canada, after launching in other regions. The Dyson 360 Vis Nav is now available to order in the US for a heady $1,199 from both Dyson’s online store and retailers like Amazon.
It didn’t take long for wireless earbuds to become ubiquitous. Apple’s AirPods launched back in September 2016, joining notable true wireless headphones from Jabra, Sony, Samsung, and others. A few years later, they’re the go-to choice for many of us when listening to music, podcasts and streaming services on our phones and tablets.
