This digest compiles the latest from The Verge.
Today’s The Verge Roundup
Xbox’s next big games showcase happens on June 7th
30 Mar 2026, 1:18 pm by Andrew Webster
It may be the end of March, but gaming companies are already getting ready for the summer. First up is Xbox, which just announced that it will be holding its next major showcase event on June 7th. That’s a typical window for Microsoft – last year’s edition took place on June 8th – and fits snugly into the timeframe of Summer Game Fest.
It’s an important moment for Microsoft’s gaming division, which just saw a big upheaval in which longtime Xbox boss Phil Spencer retired with Asha Sharma taking over as CEO. The showcase will be an opportunity to show what the current state of the Xbox platform is. It will be livestreamed but also include an …
For $200 more, you can get a MacBook Air
30 Mar 2026, 1:05 pm by Joanna Stern
It was January 2008, and Steve Jobs had just pulled the MacBook Air out of a manila envelope onstage at Macworld.
Within minutes, Windows PC executives everywhere lost their minds. They grabbed the nearest office envelope, tried to shove in their plastic laptops, and tore straight through the paper. Engineers were summoned. Assistants were dispatched for larger envelopes.
Okay, I have no proof that happened. But we all know what did happen next: imitation. Years of it.
Apple’s history books all hail the iPod. The iPhone. The iPad. And then, somewhere between a sidebar and a footnote, the MacBook Air. But without the Air, the modern lapt …
The mad dash to build the future of multimedia
30 Mar 2026, 1:05 pm by John Buck
It’s 1989. To play a video, listen to a song, or show photos on a desktop computer requires bolting on expensive hardware, built by a different company, using different software. There are no standards, no portability, no sharing.
Tyler Peppel, Apple product marketer: It should have been a natural area for Apple to be in, but we had nothing. Apple’s CEO John Sculley told me, “We need to get into this,” but of course, it wasn’t that easy.
John Worthington, audio engineer: There were people inside the company who said, “No one’s ever going to listen to music or watch videos on a computer. Ever.”
A dozen people at Apple changed that. They h …
Apple @ 50
30 Mar 2026, 1:05 pm by Verge Staff
Fifty years ago, on April 1st, 1976, Apple Computer Company was founded. Today it’s one of the most valuable companies in the world, celebrated for producing ubiquitous products like the iPad and iPhone to now-nostalgia bait like the iPod Mini and PowerBook. Over the last five decades, the company has seen ups and downs but ultimately has left its mark on almost every part of our relationship with tech and culture, from entertainment to fitness to accessibility.
In this package, The Verge looks back at the impact of the tech giant over the last five decades — from the triumphs and failures of the Jobs eras to its current incarnation as an antitrust juggernaut. We reminisce about some of our favorite products and take a walk down memory lane to look back at some of The Verge’s earliest Apple coverage. (Plus, we’re community ranking our 50 favorite Apple products — join in!)
Apple @ 50
- Steve Jobs and the greatest run of products in tech history
- For $200 more, you can get a MacBook Air
- Rank the 50 best Apple products
- Here’s how to rank the 50 best Apple products ever
- Apple II Forever!
- The mad dash to build the future of multimedia
- The origin story of Apple’s long-running relationship with FoxConn
- The Macintosh changed computers forever
- Apple’s long, bitter App Store antitrust war
Verge retrospective
- A photo history of Frog, the company that designed the original Mac
- Apple Watch: the definitive review
- Lisa’s Final Act: how Apple invented its future by burying its past
- 40 years of Apple history with Walt Mossberg
- How the iPhone won over Japan and gave the world emoji
- iPhone 4S review
- The walls of Apple’s garden are tumbling down
- iPad Pro review
- The Mac turns 40 — and keeps on moving
- Apple iPad (2017) review: the best feature is the price
- Apple AirPods review: wireless that wows, earbuds that don’t
- How Apple changed the world again: the App Store turns five
- Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not
- Apple Intelligence is here, but it still has a lot to learn
- The iPad Pro at 10: a decade of unrealized potential
- Mossberg: Tim Cook’s Apple had a great decade but no new blockbusters
- The iMac has become a computer in search of a purpose
- Inside the high drama of the iPhone 4
- The biggest app in the whole wide world
- Apple TV 4K (third-generation) review: unmatched power at a much better price
The origin story of Apple’s long-running relationship with FoxConn
30 Mar 2026, 1:00 pm by Patrick McGee
In 2025, Patrick McGee published Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company, a deeply-reported look at the tech giant’s investment in – and growing reliance on – China.
The following excerpt, pulled from Chapter 9 of Apple in China, examines the company’s relationship with Foxconn, today the infamous builder of iPhones. Foxconn wasn’t always a formidable company, though. As McGee’s reporting illustrates, its exponential growth was thanks in large part to founder Terry Gou’s cultivation of a relationship with Apple. That relationship played a huge role in taking the company from a supply outlet for affordable components to, …
Vivo launches X300 Ultra flagship ‘designed for professional photography’
30 Mar 2026, 12:30 pm by Jess Weatherbed
Vivo has launched the X300 Ultra in China today, the company’s latest flagship that really puts the “camera” in cameraphone. The device is “designed for professional photography,” according to Vivo’s press release, and features a set of Zeiss camera lenses that are optimized for specific shooting styles, including telephoto close-ups, wide-angle, and videography.
My colleague Dom got an early look at the X300 Ultra’s upgraded telephoto extender lens and professional camera cage at MWC this year, but now we have more specifications for the phone itself. The big story here is the camera array. The X300 Ultra features a “3+2 ZEISS Master Lense …
KitchenAid redesigned its iconic mixer so you can set an exact speed
30 Mar 2026, 12:00 pm by Andrew Liszewski
KitchenAid calls its new Artisan Plus Stand Mixer the biggest upgrade to the appliance since 1955. If you’ve ever been frustrated by the limited speed settings on the brand’s iconic mixers, you might agree. Not only does the new Artisan Plus introduce an additional half-speed setting for gently folding and incorporating ingredients like egg whites and berries, but it also features a redesigned control lever for selecting an exact speed in between its 11 presets.
The Artisan Plus Stand Mixer is available from KitchenAid, Williams Sonoma, and other retailers starting today for $599.99 in 11 of the brand’s existing colors, plus four new ones, …
Apple II Forever!
30 Mar 2026, 12:00 pm by Jason Snell
When you think of Apple, you probably think of the iPhone, or maybe the Mac, or perhaps you’ve got fond memories of the iPod. But Apple’s 50-year run of creating tech products that people fall in love with – sometimes a lot of people, sometimes just a hardy few – would never have happened if it weren’t for a product and platform that’s been gone for decades.
Apple would never have made it if it weren’t for the Apple II, the company’s first hit product and the first one to generate the amount of devotion we’ve now come to expect from fans of Apple’s products. Their slogan was, and still is, “Apple II Forever!”
Let’s go back to the dawn of c …
These retractable studded tires might save our roads, ears, and lungs
30 Mar 2026, 11:30 am by Tim Stevens
If you want to feel truly invincible when driving in the snow, you need a set of studded snow tires. They’re illegal in some places, typically restricted to the frigid months of the year in others. Spring for a set, though, and they’ll see you through the worst, slipperiest, snowiest driving conditions you can imagine.
They come at a pretty substantial cost, though, and I’m not just talking about a financial one. Yes, quality tires with embedded tungsten tips are generally far pricier than your average bargain rubber with snowflakes on the sidewall. The bigger issue, though, is that they can be extremely loud and are substantially worse for …
Steve Jobs and the greatest run of products in tech history
30 Mar 2026, 11:00 am by David Pierce
“I’m pleased to report to you that Apple’s back on track.” It was May of 1998, and Steve Jobs was about 10 months into his second stint leading the company he’d cofounded more than two decades earlier. (It was also a bit more than a decade after that company forced him out.) Jobs took the stage at the annual Macworld conference in a white shirt and dark jacket, and told the audience the Apple team had been working harder than ever to finish up a new computer, one designed with the internet in mind. It was called iMac. “We think iMac’s going to be a really big deal,” he told the audience. He was right.
When Jobs came back to Apple in 1997, h …
End of today’s The Verge roundup.
