This digest compiles the latest from The Verge.
Today’s The Verge Roundup
I quit all my AI fitness plans, and I feel free
12 Dec 2025, 3:00 pm by Victoria Song
This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest phones, smartwatches, apps, and other gizmos that swear they’re going to change your life. Optimizer arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 10AM ET. Opt in for Optimizer here.
This time last year, I’d cut 16 minutes off my four-mile run time, was lifting three to four times a week, and had lost 10 pounds after a consistent six months of training. I felt amazing. Then life happened.
A year later, I haven’t run more than a 5K in three months, I gained back those 10 pounds from stress, and have been beset b …
How to vibe-write a country hit
12 Dec 2025, 2:23 pm by David Pierce
You may not even know it, but you’ve almost certainly encountered songs made mostly or even entirely with AI. If you’ve scrolled on TikTok the last few weeks, you’ve probably heard “I Run” a few times, but there are countless others making their way around social and music platforms. AI tools in general, and Suno in particular, are becoming a big part of the music-making process. And nowhere is that more true than in the home of country music, Nashville.
On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay and David are joined by Charlie Harding, a music journalist and professor who also co-hosts the excellent Switched on Pop podcast. Charlie takes us t …
A presidential refresher on wireless terminology, courtesy of Trump Mobile
12 Dec 2025, 2:00 pm by Allison Johnson
Where’s the Trump Phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump Phone’s whereabouts. As usual, we’re still waiting for a response. In the meantime, we’re publishing a little reminder of some wireless tech terms. You know, in case you forgot.
6G? 4K? 3D? Whether you’re a layperson or the leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world, it can be hard keeping a lot of numbers and letters in your head. Not that I’m pointing a finger; surely anyone can forget what a silly little combination of numbers and letters means! Especially if you have things like nuclear codes takin …
This Tetris-playing watch struggles with the one thing it should be great at
12 Dec 2025, 1:41 pm by Andrew Liszewski
The Tetris: My Play Watch may look like an Apple Watch, but it eschews most of the functionality you’ll typically find on a smartwatch to focus on two things: playing Tetris and celebrating the game through a UI that’s thoroughly Tetris-themed. It’s very good at making you want to play Alexey Pajitnov’s iconic tetromino-stacking puzzler, just not on the watch because of frustrating touchscreen controls that require more focus than the game itself.
The included straps are colorfully Tetris-themed (you can swap them with standard watch straps if you want to tone it down), as is the collection of nine different faces. There are both digital an …
YouTube made its video player easier to navigate on TVs
12 Dec 2025, 1:15 pm by Jess Weatherbed
The YouTube watch screen has been given a new look on TVs. The redesign aims to provide a “more intuitive experience with easier navigation,” according to YouTube’s announcement, relocating the video title and several controls, and adding a new “Description” button to access creator information and other video features.
I’m already seeing the update on my own Nvidia Shield Pro streaming box and native Phillips TV OS, and I do think it makes it easier to find specific video features and controls. My colleague Thomas Ricker says he isn’t seeing the redesign in Apple TV’s YouTube player, however, so they may still be rolling out. These changes …
The Pluribus apocalypse gets a little quieter
12 Dec 2025, 1:00 pm by Andrew Webster
The theme of this week is isolation. That’s always been a part of what makes Pluribus so unsettling, of course; in the show there are only a handful of human survivors left on Earth, while the rest of the population has turned into an interconnected hive mind, some 7 billion people strong. But watching Carol (Rhea Seehorn) and Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga) struggle through that loneliness in episode 7 really drives that point home.
Welcome to our weekly Verge-subscriber discussion of Pluribus, the new sci-fi series on Apple TV from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. The show follows Carol as one of the few “survivors” on Earth after a vi …
My defense of a $40 cable paperweight – I’m sorry
12 Dec 2025, 11:55 am by Thomas Ricker
Warning: I’m going to make an attempt to justify a $40 paperweight for cable management. I’m not sure how I ended up in this position, or who hurt me. All I can say is that I’m not proud of myself, so please, take pity.
I’ve been using Native Union’s 3-cable Weighter for about a week. It sits on my kitchen table, which also serves as my impromptu workspace on most days. It looks nice when I happen to notice it, and I can be assured that each time I return with my MacBook Pro in hand, I’ll find the MagSafe connector right where I left it.
Before Weighter, I’d just let the cable fall to the ground, requiring a middle-age bend and audible gru …
Tomb Raider announces two new games
12 Dec 2025, 3:11 am by Ash Parrish
While Geoff Keighley had already announced that Tomb Raider would be making a Game Awards appearance, the surprise was that instead of one game announcement there’s two. Crystal Dynamics and Amazon Game Studios are releasing two Tomb Raider games back-to-back in 2026 and 2027. First up, coming in 2026 is Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Don’t let the fancy name fool you though, Legacy of Atlantis is the Unreal Engine 5 version of the first Tomb Raider game, a remake similar to Tomb Raider Anniversary which updated the 1997 original PlayStation game for the PS2.
But that’s not all. In 2027, the Tomb Raider team will release another game, To …
The best Christmas gifts we love under $50
12 Dec 2025, 2:50 am by Cameron Faulkner
One of the easiest things to do during the holidays is spend too much money. It happens to many of us, even when we swear that things are going to be different this year. We want to help you stay true to your intentions to save money when possible, and we’re doing that with a gift guide focused on products that cost no more than $50. We’ve already posted a guide to the best gifts under $100, but you might be surprised how many good gifts can be purchased for half the amount.
You can delight a lucky recipient who’s looking for a quirky addition to their home with an heirloom tomato beeswax candle. Or present a set of rechargeable hand warmer …
Tim Sweeney on the future of Fortnite after another win over Apple
12 Dec 2025, 2:48 am by Jay Peters
Shortly after appeals court judges ruled against Apple’s contempt appeal in a years-long antitrust dispute against the makers of Fortnite, I got to talk to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in an interview. According to Sweeney, today’s ruling “completely shuts down” Apple’s App Store rules that allow it to collect “junk fees.”
The three-judge Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel largely affirmed an April ruling that Apple failed to comply with Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’s 2021 order allowing app developers to link to external payment options, which Sweeney said “… is really awesome for all developers.”
Perhaps the most notable part of the app …
End of today’s The Verge roundup.
