Chris Welch | The VergeThe Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts.2025-07-28T17:43:13+00:00https://www.theverge.com/authors/chris-welch/rsshttps://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1Chris Welch<![CDATA[The best AirPods to buy]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=6452172025-07-22T11:21:29-04:002025-07-22T11:21:29-04:00
Whether you’re buying your first pair of AirPods or replacing a well-used older pair, it’s easy to understand why so many iPhone owners prefer Apple’s earbuds and headphones over other options. Apple has spent years gradually adding new features that work best — and sometimes only work at all — within the company’s walled garden. These convenient tricks include audio sharing, automatic switching between Apple’s various devices, Apple TV integration, and more.
There are currently four AirPods models to choose from, each with its own distinct appeal and upside. You likely already know whether you’re more interested in earbuds or over-ear headphones, so that’s the first divide. In the case of headphones, your only choice is the AirPods Max. But in the earbuds category, Apple offers three options: the AirPods Pro, AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, and the plain old AirPods 4.
If you want the earbuds that guarantee you’ll get the latest and greatest software features from Apple, the second-generation AirPods Pro should be at the top of your list. They offer the whole gamut of ecosystem exclusives. And if you’re the type of person to misplace things, you’ll be thankful that the earbuds’ case has a U1 chip for pinpoint location finding. So whenever they go missing, you can track right where they are in the room using Apple’s Find My app.
The AirPods Pro deliver noise cancellation that’s effective at tamping down the volume of your surroundings in all but the most hectic environments. Their sound quality is on another level compared to the regular AirPods — helped in no small part by the in-ear seal you get from their silicone ear tips.
In 2024, Apple introduced three major hearing health features, including a hearing test, automatic hearing protection, and the option to use the AirPods Pro as clinical-grade hearing aids if you have mild or moderate hearing loss. No other AirPods (including the AirPods Max) offer this functionality, so it definitely sets the Pros apart. And the same can be said of their volume controls; you just swipe on the stems to raise or lower the loudness of your music, which is a handy advantage that the similar-looking AirPods 4 lack.
But not everyone likes the way ear tips feel. Even with venting and the other measures Apple has taken to improve comfort and reduce that clogged-up sensation, some people just prefer the regular, one-size-fits-most AirPods. Their open design means you’re never cut off from the outside world. The AirPods Pro have an impressive transparency mode, but the AirPods 4 don’t need to pipe in your surroundings; you can always hear what’s happening around you.
Apple sells two versions of the AirPods 4. No matter which you choose, you’ll get the same sound quality, microphone performance on voice calls, and IP54 water resistance. (The latter also applies to the latest AirPods Pro.) The more expensive pair features active noise cancellation and a more advanced charging case. You might be surprised by how well the noise cancellation works even with an unsealed design; it reduces office ambience and annoying hums, but louder sounds and voices still cut through the ANC. As for the case, the pricier AirPods 4 include wireless charging and Find My integration.
If you’re truly interested in noise-canceling earbuds, consider saving a bit more and upgrading to the AirPods Pro 2. They offer much better audio quality, stronger ANC, and a better experience overall. I’d only steer you to the noise-canceling AirPods 4 if you’re really opposed to ear tips.
I’ve gone back and forth recommending Apple’s $549 AirPods Max over the last few years. They have a standout design, but the good looks and premium feel come at the cost of weight. These headphones are considerably heavier than most competitors and can get fatiguing over extended use. But Apple has also made smart choices: the fabric ear cups on the AirPods Max are much more pleasant in warm weather than the pleather you’ll find on Bose and Sony products, and won’t get your ears sweaty.
The AirPods Max provide impressive noise cancellation, and the transparency mode is clearer and more natural-sounding than any other set of headphones on the market. As for sound, Apple’s headphones have a pleasant sound signature that works well across a wide range of genres. They’re easy to listen to with an impressive soundstage for closed-back headphones.
You lose some features — like conversation awareness and adaptive audio — that are included on the AirPods Pro; this is a side effect of the AirPods Max using Apple’s older H1 chip. However, the company has recently added lossless audio over USB-C, meaning these headphones offer the richest audio fidelity of the entire lineup.
We spend dozens of hours using AirPods products for our initial reviews, and that testing extends for weeks and months afterward. That’s where we assess sound quality, mic performance, and overall reliability. Where applicable, we try the active noise cancellation in a wide range of different environments and have put the hearing protection of the AirPods Pro through the paces at concerts. We also closely examine ecosystem benefits and how the AirPods and Apple’s other products work together.
Update, July 22nd: Adjusted prices / availability and added a link to a recent Favorites article.
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Chris Welch<![CDATA[The best Sonos speakers to buy in 2025]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=6521712025-07-18T18:10:34-04:002025-07-18T18:10:34-04:00
After the year of self-induced tumult that Sonos has been through, I can understand why some people are reluctant to spend money on the company’s products. But interim CEO Tom Conrad has shown that he’s determined to get back on track and revitalize Sonos as the leading whole-home audio brand. The contentious mobile app is in a much better place today than just a few months ago, though some customers still encounter bugs and the frustration of speakers randomly vanishing from their system. It’s not all roses, but the situation is moving in the right direction — and I took Sonos’ decision to cancel its video player as a promising sign of renewed focus.
I’m not about to sell any of my Sonos gear. For one, the company’s whole-home platform offers conveniences that competitors don’t match — at least not without hassle. Most of the time, I’m streaming from Apple Music, Spotify, or YouTube Music. But if I’m watching a sports game on my TV, I can pipe the audio from my Sonos soundbar to a speaker in a different room to follow the action. Playing something over Bluetooth? With most of the company’s recent speakers, it’s possible to do the same thing and spread that music across your entire Sonos system.
Why you should trust my Sonos recommendations
I’ve covered Sonos extensively for several years at The Verge. This has included reporting on the company’s latest news, reviewing a lengthy list of Sonos products, and bringing attention to the app fiasco, which eventually led to the ouster of former CEO Patrick Spence. Audio and home theater are two of my primary focus areas in product reviews, so I’m well-versed when it comes to determining whether a speaker or soundbar is great — or just another also-ran product.
I wouldn’t fault anyone for waiting to see where Sonos and its app go from here. But keep in mind that tariffs might eventually lead to price increases for some of these products. Putting the software misstep aside, this company makes some genuinely excellent hardware, so if you don’t want to risk paying more, now might be the time to buy. And if you’re wondering which are the true standouts, I’ve got you covered.
If you’re looking for a decent-sounding, compact speaker to put in the kitchen, office, or really anywhere in your home, the Era 100 is your best option. Sonos improved upon this speaker’s predecessors, the Play:1 and Sonos One, by upgrading to stereo drivers for richer, wider audio. Bluetooth playback is now supported, along with line-in audio (with a separate dongle). And the Era 100 also has reworked physical controls, including a volume bar you can slide your finger across and, finally, dedicated track controls.
The speaker has an elegant design, and you can use hands-free voice controls to summon Amazon Alexa or Sonos Voice Control to skip tracks or switch to a different playlist. Sonos recently dropped the Era 100’s price to $199, which is more than fair for what you’re getting. I’d buy now and avoid risking the cost going up again, thanks to tariffs.
The Sonos Five isn’t just Sonos’ best-sounding speaker; it’s at the top of the pack compared to all competitors. From an audio quality perspective, it beats the HomePod, Echo Studio, Nest Audio, and other mass market speakers — both those that are smart and not. Can you find better hi-fi bookshelf speakers? Absolutely, but those aren’t natively tied into music services like Sonos gear is. The Five is a hefty unit and takes up a decent amount of desk space. But once you throw some music on, its powerful stereo output is enough to handle any dinner party or weekend get-together.
There’s nothing “smart” about the Five. It lacks microphones and voice assistant functionality. But that simplicity is appealing in its own right: you’re getting a damn good speaker that ties into the Sonos platform. The Five also features a 3.5mm aux input, making it a good turntable companion — especially if you spring for a stereo pair.
When it comes to portable speakers, the Move 2 is in a whole different league than Sonos’ much smaller Roam 2. It’s bigger and heavier, but a built-in handle makes it easier to lug the Move 2 around your home or out to the backyard. There’s no comparison between the two when it comes to audio: the Move 2 smokes the far more compact Roam 2. Like the Era 100, it has a stereo driver arrangement, whereas the Roam mixes everything down to mono and sounds more muffled.
The Move’s larger size gives it a clear advantage in terms of bass punch, and aside from playing music wirelessly, you’ve got the option of plugging in other devices over USB-C for line-in audio. I also continue to appreciate that the battery in the Move 2 is user-replaceable, which can’t be said of many Bluetooth speakers. You’ll be able to keep enjoying your investment for long, long into the future. And with a dust / water resistance rating of IP56, it can handle rain and splashes of water without problems; just don’t drop it into a pool.
I prefer the Move 2 over traditional portable speakers since, at least whenever I’m home, the Sonos lets me play music over Wi-Fi at a higher fidelity than Bluetooth can offer. Plus, the Move 2 also supports Apple AirPlay and Spotify Connect, so it’s easy to just skip the Sonos app altogether if you wish.
The best Sonos soundbar for home theater enthusiasts
Sonos Arc Ultra
The Arc Ultra surpasses the original Arc soundbar with more immersive Dolby Atmos surround sound, much better bass, and the ability to play music over Bluetooth.
Score: 8
Pros
Cons
More immersive sound than original Arc
Bass gains are substantial enough to make this a viable standalone option
Now supports Bluetooth audio
Sonos app remains buggy for some
Play:1 and Play:3 no longer supported as surrounds
Introduced in late 2024, the Arc Ultra improves on the original Arc with significantly more powerful bass response. That’s largely thanks to the inclusion of Sonos’ new SoundMotion technology, which manages to get a better low-end wallop from a soundbar that’s not much larger than the model it replaces. This means some buyers can get away with buying the Arc Ultra on its own without adding a subwoofer.
The Arc Ultra delivers Dolby Atmos surround sound that’s more convincing and immersive than any other Sonos soundbar to date, and it’s up there with the very best you can find from a single-enclosure speaker. Vocal clarity has also improved substantially thanks to better center channel performance. Another upgrade over the first Arc is the addition of Bluetooth audio support.
The Beam isn’t as powerful as the Sonos Arc, nor can it match the flagship soundbar’s Dolby Atmos immersion bubble. But you still get room-filling surround sound for less money — and the Beam ties into the Sonos ecosystem for added convenience.
There are plenty of scenarios and TV rooms where the Arc Ultra might be too powerful. If you’re in a smaller space or don’t need the absolute best surround sound, the Beam (Gen 2) starts to make more sense. It still has Atmos, but the effect is virtualized since the Beam lacks the Arc Ultra’s upward-firing speakers. Even so, the home theater experience you’ll get from the Beam will blow away any speakers built into a TV.
In the same vein, unless you’re hell bent on rumbling your walls, the $429 Sub Mini subwoofer is more than enough for layering some extra oomph and growl onto Hollywood blockbusters and your favorite TV shows. The $799 Sub 4 is Sonos’ flagship subwoofer, but plenty of people have saved hundreds of dollars by pairing the Sub Mini with any of the company’s soundbars — and they’ve been ecstatic with the results.
As its name suggests, the Sub Mini is more compact than the Sub 4, which makes it easier to find an inconspicuous spot to place it. Even if you’re the type to do a sub crawl and put it somewhere in plain sight, I’d argue it looks more stylish than the blocky Sub 4.
Sonos and Ikea might be winding down their partnership, but that doesn’t mean you should sleep on the existing Symfonisk products before they’re completely phased out. The Symfonisk Bookshelf Speaker (Gen 2), in particular, remains the most affordable gateway into the Sonos ecosystem, even with its recent price hike. Sound-wise, it’s not far off from the old Sonos One / Play:1 and is a very enjoyable speaker. Plus, the lower price tag makes it easier to convince yourself to scoop up two for a stereo pair. These — or the Symfonisk Picture Frame Speaker — make excellent rear surround speakers if you’re on a budget.
Boy oh boy, did Sonos’ wireless headphones come right at the worst possible moment. The company’s app crisis completely sidelined the Ace headphones. Some customers were also disappointed that the Ace can’t play music over Wi-Fi or be grouped with the company’s in-home speakers.
But here’s the thing: the Ace headphones are still fantastic. They’re comfortable, have a gorgeous design (with easily swappable ear pads), and sound detailed, powerful, and expressive. They support wired audio over USB-C in addition to Bluetooth. And the TV Audio Swap feature is a useful perk that I still often use late at night when my Arc Ultra would disturb others. You can route any audio that would normally come through the soundbar — from your TV, gaming console, or streaming device — through two pairs of headphones and listen privately (with spatial audio surround sound). Sonos’ new TrueCinema mode even lets you fine-tune the latter to better reflect the acoustics of your space.
No, the Ace headphones aren’t what I’d consider the ideal of a wearable product from Sonos. But they remain a wholly impressive debut that fell victim to the company’s poor software decisions.
Update, July 18th: Adjusted pricing and availability. Brandon Widder also contributed to this post.
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Chris Welch<![CDATA[The best earbuds we’ve tested for 2025]]>https://www.theverge.com/21309820/best-wireless-earbuds2025-07-28T13:43:13-04:002025-07-08T12:05:00-04:00
It’s hard to buy a bad pair of wireless earbuds these days, and with constant discounts and deals wherever you look, now is as good of a time as any to splurge on the pair you’ve been eyeing. The market has come a long way since the early era of true wireless earbuds when we had to deal with mediocre sound quality and unreliable performance, all for the sake of ditching cables. Things are much different now. After several product generations of learned lessons, companies like Sony, Apple, Samsung, and others are releasing their most impressive earbuds to date.
You can get phenomenal noise cancellation and sound quality in the premium tier of earbuds if you’re willing to spend big. But those aren’t always the most important criteria for everyone: maybe you’re looking for the perfect fitness earbuds or for a set that works just as well for Zoom calls as for playing your favorite playlists and podcasts.
Tech companies are increasingly making their earbuds work best with their own products through exclusive features and functionality, so that’s another thing to consider as you shop around. If you want a perk like head-tracking spatial audio, you’ll need to use AirPods with an iPhone, Samsung buds with a Samsung phone, and so on.
Featured in this article
Best overall: Sony WF-1000XM5
Sony’s flagship wireless earbuds offer the company’s best noise cancellation, powerful and lively sound, and a comfortable fit.
Noise cancellation: Yes / Battery life: 8 hours (ANC on) / Water resistance: IPX4 / Bluetooth codecs: LDAC, AAC, SBC / Multipoint: Yes / Works best with: Android, iOS, Windows, macOS / Ear tips: Foam (XS, S, M, L)
Just like their predecessors, Sony’s WF-1000XM5 earbuds have again topped our recommendations for the overall best noise-canceling earbuds. Thanks to their larger drivers, the audio quality is more detailed and dynamic than before while still retaining the warmth and clarity that made the WF-1000XM4 so enjoyable. Sony has also further improved its ANC and is nearing the same territory as Bose’s QC Earbuds II. These earbuds do a terrific job of eliminating background noise. Battery life can stretch to eight hours of continuous listening with noise cancellation turned on.
Some people found the XM4 to be bulky and uncomfortable, so this time around, Sony has managed to shrink the XM5 by 25 percent. Like before, the company includes foam-style tips that expand in your ears to create an excellent seal — and now there’s a fourth (extra small) set of tips in the box.
On Android phones, the 1000XM5 support Sony’s LDAC codec for higher-quality music playback. And they’re capable of dynamic head tracking spatial audio through supported video apps like Netflix. But even if you’re not using LDAC (or have an iPhone), these are up there with the very best audio-focused premium earbuds — including Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless 4, only with substantially better noise cancellation. They’re also capable of multipoint Bluetooth connectivity, so you can pair them with two devices at the same time.
It’s worth noting that there were many reports of battery issues with the 1000XM4 over time as those earbuds aged, but Sony claims to have rectified that problem with the new model by tweaking the charging algorithm.
Nothing’s Ear (a) earbuds have the same stylish, semi-transparent design as the company’s other earbuds — but these come in a snazzy yellow. They combine decent ANC, enjoyable sound, and other features like multipoint for under $100.
Noise cancellation: Yes / Battery life: 5.5hours (ANC on) / Water resistance: IP54 / Bluetooth codecs: LDAC, AAC, SBC / Multipoint: Yes / Works best with: Android, iOS, Windows, macOS / Ear tips: Silicone (S, M, L)
When looking at Nothing’s Ear (a) earbuds, it’s easy to focus all your attention on the catchy yellow color or their fun, super compact carrying case. But at their $99.99 price, the company’s entry-level earbuds provide a ton of features, including active noise cancellation, a low-latency mode for gaming, multipoint Bluetooth pairing, and a decent IP54 dust and water resistance rating.
And the sound quality you get outperforms my usual expectations for this price point. They’re not quite on par with Nothing’s higher-end Ears, but you do get expressive, very enjoyable audio — and you can customize the EQ further in Nothing’s mobile app.
Noise cancellation: Yes / Battery life: 6hours (ANC on) / Water resistance: IPX4 / Bluetooth codecs: AAC, SBC, aptX Adaptive / Multipoint: Yes / Works best with: Android, iOS, Windows, macOS / Ear tips: Silicone (S, M, L)
Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are the most powerful noise-canceling earbuds on the market. Of all our top picks, they do the best job of offering peace and quiet from the cacophony of daily life, putting you in a private bubble with your music playlists or favorite podcasts.
The QC Ultra Earbuds are extremely similar to 2022’s QC Earbuds II in terms of design, fit, and sound. Audio quality is rich and dynamic, delivering more bass thump than, say, Apple’s AirPods Pro. And by switching to a two-piece ear tip / stabilizer fitting process, Bose’s latest flagship buds should fit a wider range of ears more comfortably. The Ultra also introduce a new Immersive Audio mode, which is Bose’s take on spatial audio.
That being said, it’s worth noting that Bose recently announced an updated version of the QC Ultra Earbuds, which, with the help of AI, supposedly offer improved call quality and enhanced adaptive ANC to help curb sudden spikes in noise. They’ll also retail for the same price as the current model and come with a wireless charging case when they launch later this summer, preventing you from having to pay extra for what has essentially become a table stakes feature at this point.
Noise cancellation: Yes / Battery life: 8hours (ANC on) / Water resistance: IPX4 / Bluetooth codecs: AAC, SBC / Multipoint: No / Works best with: Android, iOS, Windows, macOS / Ear tips: Silicone (XS, S, M, L, XL)
After a long wait, Beats finally introduced the Powerbeats Pro 2 in early 2025. They carry forward the signature ear hook design of past Powerbeats earbuds, but improve upon the original Powerbeats Pro in several key ways. Beats added active noise cancellation and a natural-sounding transparency mode to the Pro 2; the first-generation pair lacked both. The earbuds themselves are lighter, too, and the charging case is noticeably smaller.
The Powerbeats Pro 2 also feature heart rate monitoring thanks to built-in sensors on each earbud. You might already have a fitness tracker, chest strap, or smartwatch for this purpose, but if not, you can use these with compatible apps like Nike Run Club, Runna, Ladder, Slopes, Open, Peloton, and YaoYao. The downside is that they can’t simultaneously play music and broadcast heart rate to gym equipment when paired to an iOS device, rendering the Pro 2 a better heart rate monitoring alternative for Android users than iPhone users.
The Powerbeats Pro 2 remain rated IPX4 for water resistance. While that’s not as robust as some other fitness-focused buds, it should be sufficient to survive sweat and outdoor runs in various conditions. The earbuds still offer easy-to-use physical buttons and a dedicated volume rocker, so it’s easy to control them in the middle of a workout.
If you’re an iPhone owner, the Powerbeats Pro 2 earbuds include Apple-only features like dynamic head tracking for spatial audio, auto device switching, Find My integration, and more. For Android users, Beats has an app that packs in a smaller subset of these functions.
Noise cancellation: Yes / Battery life: 6hours (ANC on) / Water resistance: IPX4 / Bluetooth codecs: AAC, SBC / Multipoint: No / Works best with: iOS, Windows, macOS / Ear tips: Silicone (XS, S, M, L)
For those invested in Apple’s ecosystem, the second-gen AirPods Pro bring an appealing mix of top-notch noise cancellation and refined sound compared to the original pair. As always, they also include numerous features (spatial audio, audio sharing, automatic syncing across iCloud devices, etc.) that make them an ideal companion to the company’s other devices. They’re also the only AirPods that come with different sizes of ear tips for a customizable fit — including an extra small option.
The AirPods Pro have a compact case that supports wireless charging. Setting them up is as simple as holding the open case near your iPhone. The earbuds are lightweight and fit snugly in most ears. Their force sensor pinch controls are easy to get down, and with the second-gen model, Apple added swipe-based volume controls. The AirPods Pro have traditionally ranked among the best wireless earbuds when it comes to voice call quality, and the second-gen earbuds don’t disappoint. Their ANC is improved over the original model and is now right up there with Sony, and their transparency mode has gained the ability to quickly damper sudden, loud noises that might happen around you.
Where the AirPods Pro stand out is with their Apple-only features like head tracking for spatial audio, automatic device switching, extensive Find My support, and so on. The charging case now features a built-in speaker and a U1 chip for pinpoint location tracking, and the latest AirPods Pro have better sound and noise canceling capabilities than the original model. Plus, they retain their deep integration with Apple’s hardware ecosystem.
In the fall, Apple also rolled out an impressive set of hearing health features for the second-gen AirPods Pro. They’re now able to serve as clinical-grade hearing aids for people with mild to moderate hearing loss and protect your hearing in loud environments; you can even take a hearing test to assess your own level of hearing loss.
The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro are Samsung’s best-sounding wireless earbuds yet. They have a stemmed design similar to the AirPods Pro, but even if their design is a little bland, the Buds 3 Pro make up for it with great call quality, useful voice commands, and more.
Noise cancellation: Yes / Battery life: 6hours (ANC on) / Water resistance: IP57 / Bluetooth codecs: Samsung seamless, AAC, SBC / Multipoint: No / Works best with: Android, Windows, macOS / Ear tips: Silicone (S, M, L)
Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 3 Pro ditch the company’s more discreet designs of the past for a stemmed style that’s similar to AirPods and any number of other wireless earbuds. Boring? Maybe, but thanks to that change, I’ve found them to be more comfortable and provide better stability than the Buds 2 Pro. The sound quality is even better than before — and it was already excellent. These are right up there with Sennheiser and Technics from an audio fidelity standpoint.
The Buds 3 Pro are also a standout performer when it comes to call quality. And my favorite thing about these earbuds are the hands-free voice commands that don’t require you to say any specific wake phrase beforehand. You can just say “volume up” and / or “next song,” and it happens.
But they’re not perfect: the Buds 3 Pro lack multipoint connectivity, so they can’t connect to two devices at the same time. Just like Apple, Samsung prefers to automatically hop between products within its own walled garden ecosystem. Some people might consider this a dealbreaker, but I’ve still enjoyed the earbuds plenty without it.
Noise cancellation: Yes / Battery life: 8hours (ANC on) / Water resistance: IP54 / Bluetooth codecs: AAC, SBC / Multipoint: Yes / Works best with: Android, Windows, macOS / Ear tips: Silicone (XS, S, M, L)
With the Pixel Buds Pro 2, Google has addressed most of the downsides of the original pair. They’re far smaller and lighter than the chunky first-gen Pixel Buds Pro. And there’s a small nub on the buds to help lock them in place even during intensive activities like running or exercise.
Google’s active noise cancellation still isn’t on the same tier as Bose, but the transparency mode on the Buds Pro 2 is among the very best you’ll find. It offers a crisp, natural passthrough for the outside world when needed. Multipoint support is included, and Google’s latest earbuds eke out impressive battery life that surpasses most competitors.
Got a Pixel phone? With the Pixel Buds Pro 2, you can have lengthy conversations with Google’s Gemini AI while your phone stays in your pocket. Features like head-tracking spatial audio and Clear Calling are also exclusive to those within the Pixel ecosystem. If that’s you, the Pixel Buds Pro 2 are a big step up from the previous buds in a much smaller package.
Noise cancellation: Yes / Battery life: 6 hours (ANC on) / Water resistance: IPX4 / Bluetooth codecs: AAC, SBC / Multipoint: No / Works best with: Android, iOS, Windows, macOS / Ear tips: Silicone (XS, S, M, L)
Beats’ Studio Buds Plus are an upgraded, better-performing revision of the Studio Buds released in 2021. This time, the company has made the noise cancellation more powerful while also improving the quality of the transparency mode and extending battery life. If you’re going for style points, it doesn’t get much cooler than the translucent color option. These earbuds are very tiny and rank up with the best in terms of overall comfort.
What’s interesting about the Studio Buds Plus is that they use a proprietary chip that allows them to support native software features on both iOS and Android. Plenty of earbuds offer companion apps on each platform, but in the case of the Beats, they work with both Apple’s Find My and Google’s Find My Device. You also get simple one-tap pairing, no matter which operating system you’re using.
The drawback to this dual-ecosystem life is that Apple customers don’t get all the usual bells and whistles that come with AirPods or even the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2; you lose out on audio sharing, head tracking spatial audio, and other tricks. Wireless charging and an ear detection sensor (for auto-pause when a bud is removed) are also MIA, which stings a bit considering the price.
Noise cancellation: Yes / Battery life: 7.5 hours (ANC on) / Water resistance: IP54 / Bluetooth codecs: AptX Adaptive, AptX, AAC, SBC / Multipoint: Yes / Works best with: Android, iOS, Windows, macOS / Ear tips: Silicone (XS, S, M, L)
Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless earbuds have always sounded fantastic; that’s never been the issue. But previous models in the series have been tainted a bit by bugs, unsteady performance, and battery reliability problems. The fourth-gen pair finally gets that part right while continuing to offer tremendous, detailed sound quality that stands above nearly all competitors. They’re a joy to listen to. The active noise cancellation can’t compete with the likes of Apple, Sony, and Bose, but if you care more about lush, intricate sound, the MTW4 won’t disappoint in the slightest.
These earbuds come with optional wing tips to help keep them securely locked in your ears. That could prove helpful for running or when hitting the gym. Sennheiser allows for plenty of EQ customization using its mobile app, and the Momentum True Wireless 4 support a range of Bluetooth codecs, including AAC, SBC, AptX, and AptX Adaptive. Sennheiser has also promised that they’re LE Audio and Auracast-ready for when those features become more widespread.
Noise cancellation: Optional / Battery life: 5hours / Water resistance: IP54 / Bluetooth codecs: AAC, SBC / Multipoint: No / Works best with: iOS, Windows, macOS / Ear tips: None
Apple’s AirPods 4 come in two different versions, with a higher-priced option that includes active noise cancellation and wireless charging. But sound quality is identical on both sets, and equally as important in this case is that the same can be said of voice call clarity.
On the AirPods 4, there’s a new “voice isolation” feature — enabled by default — that uses machine learning both on the earbuds and your iPhone to eliminate distracting background noise on your end so that you come through clearly to whoever you’re speaking with.
Overall call quality is excellent with the AirPods 4. And beyond that, compared to the third-gen model, you can expect upgraded audio quality (with richer bass), new ways of interacting with Siri through head movements, and yes… there’s a USB-C connector on the included charging case, as opposed to a Lightning port.
The AirPods still have a one-size-fits-most hard plastic form factor, so I recommend trying them before committing to a purchase. However, Apple says it used more than 50 million data points to further refine the contours and overall stability of its latest earbuds. So, if previous models worked well for you, these seem like a safe bet. The only question is whether you feel like spending a little more to gain ANC, a transparency mode, wireless charging, and a built-in speaker for Find My location tracking.
Noise cancellation: Yes / Battery life: 6hours (ANC on) / Water resistance: IP57 / Bluetooth codecs: Samsung seamless, AAC, SBC / Multipoint: No / Works best with: Android, Windows, macOS / Ear tips: Silicone (S, M, L)
Sony’s unconventional LinkBuds were our longtime pick for the clearest voice calls on Android, but we haven’t had the chance to review their successors. For now, the aforementioned Galaxy Buds 3 Pro are an easy-to-recommend choice. The built-in “voice pickup unit” detects the movement of your mouth to help isolate your voice from background noise and keep conversations clear.
The Buds 3 Pro have proven dependable for me during video chats on Google Meet, and people have been able to hear me without issue, even when I’m answering a quick call on the street.
Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge except where specified
Update, July 8th: Updated to reflect current pricing and availability.
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Chris Welch<![CDATA[Sony WH-1000XM6 hands-on: back to the fold]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=6670172025-05-19T09:25:13-04:002025-05-15T12:00:00-04:00
Sony’s WH-1000XM6 noise-canceling headphones have arrived three years after their popular predecessors. That’s a longer gap than usual for the lineup, but don’t expect any earth-shattering changes. Whereas the 1000XM4 to 1000XM5 upgrade brought a significant design overhaul, this time Sony is mostly focusing on sound, noise cancellation, and quality-of-life hardware refinements, rather than messing with the visual style.
The 1000XM6 are an amalgamation of the best traits from Sony’s past models and should be the best of the series. But they’re also the most expensive. Sony has raised the price to $449, a $50 jump compared to the prior model and $20 more than Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra Headphones. That’s a lot of money for headphones that are unabashedly plastic.
Apple’s AirPods Max have a design befitting of their price, even if they’re overly heavy as a result. But much like Bose, Sony sticks to a different game plan by prioritizing long-term comfort for frequent flyers, commuters, and anyone who needs to dial down the outside world for a few hours.
The 1000XM6 borrow most of their DNA from the 1000XM5 with one extremely welcome change: they can fold up again. Sony added a joint to each arm that lets the headphones collapse down and take up less room in their carrying case; similar joints were found on earlier models but were absent on the 1000XM5. I’m already leery about how robust these hinges will prove over several months or a year; Sony has a mixed track record there, so stay tuned.
But the return of folding means the case is noticeably smaller than last time, and Sony has also completely ditched the zipper for a magnetic clasp. I’ve really come to love this tweak. It’s possible to close the case and lock the clasp with just one hand, which you’re obviously not going to pull off with a zipper. And the fabric case is designed in such a way that it remains tightly shut even at the far ends away from the clasp. Well done, Sony. There’s a “right way” to position the headphones when putting them in, which takes a beat to memorize, but it’s a vastly better situation for headphones you’re meant to tote everywhere.
Sony has made several other smart revisions: the headband is wider and puts less pressure on the top of your noggin. Both pleather ear cups are removable (though it takes a good tug) and easy to clip back in should you need replacements. The power button is now round, so you can quickly distinguish it from the ANC button just by feel. And for the first time in the 1000X lineup — don’t ask me how it took this long — you can charge the headphones and listen to them at the same time. But it’s not the approach I would’ve preferred. Bafflingly, Sony still doesn’t support audio over USB-C with these $450 headphones, so you have to use two cables in this scenario — USB-C for charging and the 3.5mm jack for your music.
Those are the functional differences, but Sony also upgraded its silicon this time around. The 1000XM6 use the company’s latest noise-cancellation chip, which produces class-leading ANC that surpasses the 1000XM5 and, according to Sony’s claims, all competitors on the market today. If you were already impressed by how well the 1000XM5 dialed down the outside world, hearing that these do an even better job might push you toward upgrading. (The transparency mode on the 1000XM6 remains natural-sounding, and you can still temporarily activate it by covering the right ear cup with a hand.)
Sony says its latest headphones outshine all previous 1000X models in sound quality. This can be attributed to two factors: first, the company says it consulted audio engineers at Sony’s various music studios for input on tuning the headphones. And second, the 1000XM6 includes new drivers that output clearer vocals and richer details. I haven’t spent enough time with them to reach a full verdict, but these still sound every bit like Sony headphones. They’re dynamic, lively, and don’t shy away from bass. If the default sound profile isn’t your jam, Sony gives you a 10-band EQ for customizing the sound, and I’m sure owners will be comparing their favorite settings on Reddit and elsewhere. The AirPods Max still have a wider soundstage to my ears and win out on overall clarity, but I don’t think Sony fans will be disappointed. Multipoint Bluetooth and Sony’s signature LDAC codec remain present.
This being Sony, there are always some gimmicks tossed in, and with the 1000XM6, the gimmick is spatial audio upmixing. Inside the Sound Connect app, you’ll find new options for simulating a room, coffee shop, or movie theater — with each effect adjusting the “immersion” and ambiance of stereo content with virtualized fakery. These are all terrible. I mean, bad bad. They’re easily the low point of the 1000XM6 but are easy to completely ignore or try once and never again. It’s starting to feel as though Sony has run out of ideas for competing with the ecosystem advantages that Apple, Google, and Samsung can offer.
As for voice calls, the company says it’s using AI beamforming to better isolate your speech from the surrounding environment. And Sony’s also throwing more microphones at the problem: the 1000XM6 use six mics for voice pickup compared to four last time. (There are 12 in total, with the others dedicated to noise cancellation.) I’m sure you’ll soon be able to find all sorts of mic tests around YouTube to gauge any improvements for yourself. Battery life is one area that’s completely unchanged from the 1000XM5. You’ll still get up to 30 hours with ANC on or 40 with it off.
Sony’s 1000XM6 headphones don’t come with another head-turning visual makeover, but they wisely bring back a folding design while improving comfort, noise cancellation, sound fidelity, and small touches like the physical controls. Their higher-than-ever price might push Sony loyalists to explore what else is out there, and 1000XM5 owners shouldn’t feel any rush to spend the $450. But if your older Sony earbuds are on their last legs, these could be worth saving up for.
Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
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Chris Welch<![CDATA[An in-depth interview with Sonos interim CEO Tom Conrad]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=6643292025-05-09T16:10:02-04:002025-05-09T15:00:27-04:00
It’s my final day at The Verge and Vox Media after over 13 years. And as luck should have it, I was able to wrap up my tenure here by interviewing Tom Conrad, the interim CEO of Sonos. I’ve covered this company more extensively than any other, and as our readers know, Sonos has been through the ringer over the last year — in a mess of its own making, to be clear. But over the last several months, Conrad, a Sonos board member since 2017, has kept the company laser-focused on a turnaround effort with frequent app improvements and bug fixes.
With successful stints at Pandora, Snap, and elsewhere, Conrad has deep software roots. (Yes, he was also the chief product officer at Quibi.) So on Friday, I threw my most pressing questions at the man who clearly hopes to become the permanent CEO of Sonos. We covered some of what I know Sonos’ Reddit community is likely curious about and other topics that seemed timely, and I came away encouraged about the company’s odds of getting back on track.
The below interview is lightly edited for length and clarity.
Tom Conrad, it’s great to finally meet. This week, you announced that the Symfonisk partnership with Ikea is no more. Talk about what led to that choice. You seem pretty keyed into the Sonos community, so I’m sure you saw some of the disappointed reactions. These speakers were great. And Sonos doesn’t have a $99 speaker in its lineup, which Ikea offered, and that seems important. What led to that decision in your mind?
You know, we put that partnership together eight years ago. And honestly, it’s been on sort of a slow trajectory to its end for years. One of the big things that I’ve done in my first 116 days is to try to catalog all of the things that the company is doing and to prioritize and to focus us on doing an appropriate number of things exceptionally well. I think every great company has to have that kind of focus. There are a number of things that we’ll be focused on going forward and a handful of things that we won’t. And to be honest, I think the wind down of the Ikea partnership was relatively easy to contemplate because, while on paper the price points that you’re talking about and so forth make a lot of sense, in practice, the scale of that business was quite small.
Do you see Sonos filling that gap in the future in regards to unique form factors? Or do you think this is it as far as lamp and picture frame speakers go?
What I’m focused on is delivering high value, differentiated products. And so you take something like the Era 100, which is just like, clearly the best in class sort of speaker that you can buy in that price category. And since I arrived, we brought the price of that down from $249 to $199, which we think is really a magic spot for delivering something that’s completely differentiated in the market, has tons of value that builds over time, and is a great gateway into the platform. We also have Roam, which is often discounted down to $139 or less, as another way to come into the Sonos experience.
On the disastrous app release
Obviously we have to talk about the app situation. It’s been one year. You were on the board for the whole time. I’ve talked to many people who were like, “They knew. They knew and they shipped it anyway.” So what measures are in place now where anyone at the company can say, “Hey, there’s a problem here. We need to pause.” What have you learned?
Let’s see. Let’s talk about what we knew just briefly. I think that there were three or four kind of things that were problematic about the launch of the new version of the platform. The first couple, I would call them the mistakes that we knew we were making. We knew that there were some features that we were gonna roll out in incremental — what we intended to be fast-follow releases. Add the alarm clock, add snooze, do better with accessibility. And the company made a… made a decision to launch and to sort of do that incrementally over time.
“We should’ve had a mechanism to roll back.”
Second thing is, anytime you make a set of user experience changes, you know that there’s going to be some fraction of your audience that doesn’t like them. And this is like a universal truth of software, and I think the company, because we’d done a bunch of work in the usability setting, was convinced that — oftentimes companies convince themselves of this — that it was for the greater good and we would sort of get through to the other side. I think the third mistake was one that we just didn’t understand. And that was that, obviously, in the real world, the product had material performance and reliability issues.
Just to be completely concrete about it, if the company had known, we never would have shipped it. No reasonable team would have shipped it. You can critique us for not knowing, but it’s not like we intentionally launched understanding we would have the in-the-field performance issues we did.
And the last thing is, we should’ve had a mechanism to roll back. And for a variety of reasons, it took us a while to figure out the depth of the problem, and by the time that time had passed, we couldn’t.
We have spent a year righting the ship. And we made good progress, I think, by the end of last year — and I think we’ve made really dramatic progress in the last 120 days.
You think you know Wi-Fi problems? Ask Sonos
How so? What’s changed?
One of the things is the work that we’ve done to reorganize the team and to put exactly the right people and capacity and focus on, not just the app codebase, but also the whole platform (player software, the cloud) has allowed us to unlock some of the more lingering, esoteric issues that remained. So the release that’s making its way to our customers right now — new version of the apps, new version of the player software — is beginning to get at some of those lingering issues, which I’d put into two categories.
There’s a category of issues that are particularly tied to the Play:1 and Play:3, which are 13- and 11-year-old architectures at this point. It’s sort of amazing to think that the iPhone in market when the Play:3 launched was the iPhone 4. Its halo feature was it had a selfie cam for the first time. So a lot has changed in tech since we shipped the Play:3, but fully a third of our households still have players from that generation that they love and they want to work, and we’re doing the hard work today of making sure that they have a great experience. This release that’s launching right now dramatically improves on the experience that they’ll have. In fact, quantitatively the experience is better than it was on those devices four years ago. So, far before the app itself. But we’ve got a bead on another set of enhancements that’s gonna take us even further over the spring and summer.
And then the second category of lingering issues is… I talk to a lot of people on social. I talk to a lot of people who show up in my inbox. And their issues today, truly, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say, 100 percent of the time come down to one of two things: an older player or some kind of esoteric networking reality in their home. Unfortunately, they often report (rightly), “My network’s great. I have no problem with anything else. It’s just Sonos.” And the the root cause there — and I don’t want to suggest this isn’t our problem to solve — but the root cause there is the only infrastructure in their home that wants to talk on their local network at very low latency in a sort of mesh is Sonos.
Everything else is like point-to-point to the internet. Your Apple TV, it goes to the internet and gets something back. Even your Nest thermostats. They don’t talk to each other. They talk to the internet, you know? They talk to the cloud and get their settings and all that. But Sonos, because it’s this like, real-time experience that needs to keep you know, music synchronized to the millisecond, needs volume latency that’s real time… all of your devices are kind of constantly talking to one another and staying synchronized on the local network.
“These are problems that maybe 1 percent of our households have. But 1 percent of households is 150,000 people, and apparently they’re all on Reddit.“
And that means that if… what’s a good example? You’re a Comcast customer. You’ve got Comcast Wi-Fi. You don’t like your Comcast Wi-Fi that much. You go to Best Buy and you buy a bunch of Eeros and you bring them home and you set them up. And in the process of setting them up, you give them the same SSID as your old network, but you don’t turn off the Wi-Fi on your old network. Now you have two networks, and the same name, and the same password. Things power bounce, and cycle and get updates and all the rest of it. And half your Sonos speakers come up on your old network and half come up on the new network. They can’t talk to each other at all. The app is on one of the two networks; it can only see half of them. It seems completely chaotic because of that, the real solve there is to turn Wi-Fi off in your Comcast router.
And look, part of the promise and magic of Sonos is that our customers shouldn’t have to be network administrators. But some of the problems that we see commonly today come down to issues that we need to help them troubleshoot on their local network. We have a bunch of things in progress today that will put the power back in our customers’ hands to sort of understand what’s going on in their network in a more sophisticated way.
I don’t mean to overstate this. These are problems that maybe 1 percent of our households have. But 1 percent of households is 150,000 people, [laughs] and apparently they’re all on Reddit.
The self-sabotaged Ace headphones
One casualty, so to speak, of all this was the Sonos Ace headphones. They arrived at the worst possible time alongside the overhauled app that blew up and fell apart. Sales early on were not great. Have you seen signs of that turning around? How do you save the Ace? Because they are really good headphones, but they just kind of got sidelined by this whole situation.
I’m really committed to Ace. I think it’s a fantastic product, and thank you for the compliment. Out of the gate, for us to deliver battery life, transparency, noise canceling, and comfort that we did relative to the competition, I’m really proud of. I think you’re right that the cloud of the app missteps impacted Ace. I’m excited about continuing to innovate in that space both through hardware and software. I think there’s a lot we can do with software experiences to further differentiate Ace from other things in the market. In time, we’re gonna get back on our footing with respect to the software quality.
At the highest level, it’s not that complicated. I want the same thing that you want, Chris: I just want it to work. You launch the app, it quickly gives you access to your content, you start something playing back, and you’re done! I have no ambition for people to spend their life in the Sonos app fidgeting with esoteric failures. And all of that’s within our grasp — increasingly so. We’re getting back to that, and then we can get back to the business of creating these innovative, differentiated experiences.
Sonos and subscriptions
Speaking of software, let’s talk about paywalls and subscriptions. That’s one topic that your customer base is very antsy about. I’ve heard that a few years ago, Sonos came very close to putting advanced features behind a paywall. How does Tom Conrad feel about subscriptions? Do you promise to keep all the core Sonos functions free?
“We’re not going to put grouping behind a paywall.”
So while it’s certainly true that Sonos continues to deliver new, incremental value to customers over time — sometimes a decade after they had a financial transaction with us — I think it’s kind of the life we’ve chosen, Chris. That’s not to say that it’s impossible that we wouldn’t have some kind of ongoing financial relationship with our customers. But, we’re not going to put grouping behind a paywall.
That’s all I wanted to hear, basically.
Pinewood: the canceled video player
So, I’m not sure how much you want to talk about a product that, uh, didn’t technically exist and then theoretically got canceled. But there was obviously a ton of speculation about video for a while with Sonos. Pinewood. So, I’d imagine that was canceled because you want to focus on the app for now. But how do you feel about video in 2025? Is that still somewhere you see Sonos going in the future, or is it a case where, for as long as you can see, top-tier audio products are the focus?
I mean, you’re right, that I don’t really want to talk about hypothetical products that may or may not have been canceled. You’re also right to say that part of the leadership perspective I brought to the company is this idea that we need to be focused on things that we can be really exceptional and differentiated at. Insofar as things that we are not focused on anymore, it’s really through that lens of prioritization. And I think that’s really helped the company.
People inside Sonos care deeply about our customers. It’s a little hard to see that in a year where we stumbled so badly. But the toll of letting our customers down the way we did last year was really palpable in the company when I had my first day 116 days ago or whatever it was.
Part of what I think added to the despair was this sense that they were struggling to understand “what are our priorities? How are we going to get all this done? How can I be confident that I’m showing up every day contributing to something that matters?” It’s not an exaggeration to say that there were dozens of initiatives and programs fractionally invested in when I came in the door. And one of the things I did right away was to inventory that work and prioritize it against a set of strategic perspectives of where we could be really differentiated in the world and take it down to a smaller number.
And so now, we’re working on, it’s literally 11 sort of lanes of execution, which isn’t to say 11 products. Sort of 11 themes if you like, with well understood, dedicated teams to each. Each responsible for their own sort of prioritization and perspective about where to take that avenue. In addition to making great progress on restoring performance and reliability for our customers, I think it’s this renewed sense of focus that’s brought the company to a renewed sense of optimism and energy.
I’m not sure if you know any Sonos employees. But if you did, I hope that you’re hearing from them that we’ve turned a bit of a corner in that regard.
I wouldn’t say, you used one word that I’ll correct. I wouldn’t say that the changes we made were so we could focus on the app so much. We certainly have a bunch of exciting, innovative hardware expressions of Sonos that we continue to work on. But it is the case that… I think there’s this funny kind of debate of “is Sonos a hardware company or is Sonos a software company?” Almost as if those are the only choices. I think, truly, we are a platform company. In fact, we might be in our customers’ homes, truly, the third compute platform. They have a personal computer, they have a phone, and then they have a mesh of Sonos compute that we can do things with.
And as a platform company, there is a really important software component. And I think in a way, if you look at the last six or seven years, we entered portables and we entered headphones and we entered the professional sort of space with software expressions, we weren’t as focused as we might have been on the platform-ness of Sonos. So finding a way to make our software platform a first-class citizen inside of Sonos is a big part of what I’m doing here.
Giving customers the surround sound flexibility they want
Sonos customers are super adamant about wanting to make their own surround sound speaker configurations. That was apparently going to be part of the appeal of said product that may or may not have been canceled. It seems like you’re dropping some teases on Reddit about some new stuff coming soon. Can you talk about that? What’s to come as far as letting people take more control over their system and use whatever speaker for whatever purpose they want?
I certainly think it’s a really interesting lane of innovation and sound expression in home theater. If you talk to Giles Martin, our sound experience architect, he will tell you that the best theater experiences… he says they’re like a mullet, where there’s like a lot that happens kind of behind you and and what happens in front of you is a more focused expression. And so, while the sort of very traditional view of home theater is some satellites on either side on the left and the right and some stuff behind you, that can be a little bit of a trap about this idea of putting too much in front of you on the left and the right. And so we’re really focused, yes, on listening to the kind of feedback that you get in places like Reddit about traditional 5.1 expression. But we also want to do it in a way that really does add to the sound experience and not just the psychology of that cohort. So, stay tuned.
The Sonos and Google relationship
Fair enough. Let’s talk about Google. You’re still in court cases with them. Do you want to fix that relationship? Do you see them as a valuable partner when it comes to voice and eventually AI? How do you see that playing out in the coming months and years?
You know, we continue to work through that complicated relationship. I don’t know that I have a lot to say there. We do have some cases that are pending and getting ready to go into their next phase.
I would love to find… I would love to see them express energy that they want to come out the other side of this. But it’s sort of up to them.
What’re you most excited about over your next 100 days? You want to be the next permanent CEO, is what I’ve gathered.
I do. I do. The board has a fairly immense responsibility here to run a thoughtful process and make sure they find the best person in the world to be the next CEO of Sonos. And so I’m just kind of letting that process play out. I know they have a slate of remarkable candidates, and in the end, I hope that it’s me. But what I most hope for is that they find truly the best person in the world to do the job.
I do think that one difference between an interim CEO and a permanent CEO is, an interim CEO’s mandate is mostly to focus on the short and medium term. You know, getting the team aligned to execute with clarity and purpose for the next, call it 18 months or two years.
I think, on the day that the board asks me to be the permanent CEO, it will be fun to be able to unlock my perspective on where we go in the next five and 10 years. I’ve got a bunch of big ideas about that, but they’re a little bit on the shelf behind me for the moment until I get the go-ahead.
Upcoming Sonos hardware
Last question. This is my last interview at The Verge, so thank you for the time. You said this week that for the balance of 2025, software is going to be your focus. But let’s tease something here. Is Sonos done with hardware for 2025?
Sonos is done with hardware for fiscal 25, which runs through the end of the third calendar quarter. I’ll just say this: we had a chance to talk to the company about the software and hardware roadmap for the next 18 months recently, and the word that came back to me from the company is, it’s the most excited they’ve felt about Sonos in years. So while I can’t wait for the moment where we can begin to express that longer-term vision that I was hinting at, I’m also really excited about what we’re going to do for our customers over the course of the next 18 months or so.
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Chris Welch<![CDATA[Sonos and Ikea are ending their partnership]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=6614912025-05-06T13:38:53-04:002025-05-06T12:39:45-04:00
After several years, the collaboration between Sonos and Ikea on “Symfonisk” products like lamp speakers, bookshelf speakers, and even picture frame speakers has reached its conclusion. Sonos confirmed to The Verge on Tuesday that current inventory of the Symfonisk lineup is being phased out globally at all Ikea locations and no future devices are planned. Existing products will continue to receive software updates.
“Over the past eight years, we’ve had the pleasure of working closely with Ikea and are proud of what we’ve achieved,” Sonos spokesperson Erin Pategas told me by email. “Although our work together has largely wound down and we won’t be releasing new products as partners, we’ll continue to support every existing Symfonisk product so customers can keep enjoying great sound in their homes for many years to come.”
The Symfonisk products offer full integration with Sonos’ whole-home audio ecosystem, and often at lower prices than the company’s own speaker hardware. If you’ve been considering a purchase, now would be a good time to make sure you don’t miss out on remaining stock.
The news comes as Sonos prepares to report its latest quarterly earnings on Wednesday. Those results should offer fresh insight as to how adversely US tariffs will affect the company’s business.
Last month, Sonos dropped the price of two products — its entry-level Era 100 speaker and Ray soundbar — in an attempt to boost slumping demand. Just a day later, Sonos told me that it was “closely monitoring developments related to the proposed tariffs and actively assessing potential implications for our business, customers, and supply chain.” At least so far, the company’s prices have held at their pre-tariff MSRP.
As for the Symfonisk hardware, the speakers have proven to be a popular choice as home theater surrounds for Sonos soundbars; the lamp and picture frame blend into a room’s decor more naturally than traditional speakers. They’re also an affordable gateway into the larger Sonos ecosystem. Sound-wise, the bookshelf speaker in particular has long held its own against speakers like the Sonos One / Play:1, though it’s been eclipsed by more recent Sonos offerings like the aforementioned Era 100 and Move 2.
Sonos remains focused on improving its mobile software after releasing an overhauled app last May that torpedoed the brand’s reputation when customers ran into numerous bugs and worse system performance. Interim CEO Tom Conrad has said that polishing the core user experience remains the company’s top priority.
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Chris Welch<![CDATA[Apple says tariffs will cost it at least $900 million this quarter]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=6598662025-05-01T18:01:07-04:002025-05-01T18:01:07-04:00
During Wednesday’s earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook went into the most detail yet on how the company is responding to the far-reaching US tariffs imposed by President Trump — and the potential impacts on its business. “Assuming the current global tariff rates, policies and applications do not change for the balance of the quarter and no new tariffs are added, we estimate the impact to add $900 million to our costs,” Cook said. “This estimate should not be used to make projections for future quarters, as there are certain unique factors that benefit the June quarter,” he clarified.
Once the call moved on to the Q&A section, Cook expanded quite a bit further, and I’ve transcribed that entire answer below:
For the June quarter, we do expect the majority of iPhones sold in the US will have India as their country of origin, and Vietnam to be the country of origin for almost all iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and AirPods products also sold in the US. China would continue to be the country or original for the vast majority of total product sales outside the US.
If you look at the categories of tariffs that are applicable of us today, for the June quarter, most of our tariff exposure relates to the February IEEPA-related tariff at the rate of 20 percent, which applies to imports to the US for products that have China as their country of original. In addition, for China, there was an additional 125 percent tariff for imports of certain categories of products announced in April. For us, that’s some of our US AppleCare and accessories business, and brings the total rate in China for these products to at least 145 percent.
Also, for transparency and clarity, the vast majority of our products including iPhone, Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro are currently not subject to the global reciprocal tariffs that were announced in April, as the Commerce Department has initiated a Section 232 investigation into imports of semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and downstream products that contain semiconductors. For the June quarter, as I talked about in my opening comments, we estimate the impact — assuming that the current global tariff rates, policies, and applications don’t change for the balance of the quarter — to be $900 million to our costs. I wouldn’t want to predict the mix of production in the future, but I wanted to give you clarity for the June quarter.
So there you have it. It sounds as though Apple believes tariff costs might rise once those “unique factors” at play in the June quarter no longer apply, but the company isn’t yet confirming as much. “For our part, we will manage the company the way we always have, with thoughtful and deliberate decisions,” Cook said.
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Chris Welch<![CDATA[Apple doesn’t seem too worried about Trump’s tariffs]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=6596502025-05-01T17:00:22-04:002025-05-01T17:00:22-04:00
Apple reported its latest quarterly earnings on Wednesday under the backdrop of a court ruling that’s poised to upend the company’s App Store business and tariff uncertainty that could spur price increases for devices including the iPhone. At least on this occasion, Apple’s revenue numbers weren’t top of mind for tech industry onlookers like they ordinarily would be. Still, overall revenue in fiscal Q2 2025 was $95.4 billion — a 5 percent jump compared to the year-ago quater — and services reached another all-time high. The iPhone, Mac, and iPad businesses all performed well thanks to new products; the iPad was particularly strong, with revenue up 15 percent year over year.
In recent months, Apple has released hardware including new MacBook Airs, a more powerful Mac Studio, and the refreshed iPad Air tablet. And the iPhone 16E, designed to compete with lower-cost smartphones, debuted in February. But Apple’s software team has been going through a rough patch following a series of stumbles and embarrassments.
The company’s attempts to build out its own artificial intelligence capabilities that rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and other leaders in the category have been slow going. In early March, long-promised improvements to the company’s Siri assistant were delayed. Apple is rumored to be integrating Google’s Gemini to its Apple Intelligence software suite this fall to help keep pace.
Meanwhile, the effect of President Trump’s tariffs are already reverberating across many industries, but Cook downplayed any major impacts in an interview with CNBC. He pointed to Apple’s well-distributed supply chain and manufacturing operation as a potential buffer. “If you look at the US, over half of the US sales of iPhone come from India,” he said. “If you look at the other products, Mac and iPad and AirPods and the Watch, almost all of the country of origin is Vietnam.” Much has been made about the possibility of Apple’s next iPhone lineup getting a price hike. “With an iPhone, you really have to go a step lower and look at the individual parts and where they come from,” he said.
Apple is also navigating significant legal battles. In a Wednesday ruling, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers excoriated Apple executives including CEO Tim Cook for deliberately trying to limit and mollify a 2021 ruling intended to loosen the iPhone maker’s grip over the App Store. Apple has appealed Rogers’ order, but if it holds, companies including Epic, Spotify, and Patreon are planning to seize the opportunity to more freely sidestep Apple’s in-app payments and steer users to the web.
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Chris Welch<![CDATA[Meta tightens privacy policy around Ray-Ban glasses to boost AI training]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=6586022025-04-30T18:37:26-04:002025-04-30T09:31:17-04:00
Meta is making a few notable adjustments to the privacy policy for its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. In an email sent out on April 29th to owners of the glasses, the company outlined two key changes. First, “Meta AI with camera use is always enabled on your glasses unless you turn off ‘Hey Meta,” the email said; the latter refers to the hands-free voice command functionality.
That said, spokesperson Albert Aydin tells The Verge “the photos and videos captured on Ray-Ban Meta are on your phone’s camera roll and not used by Meta for training, including photos or videos captured by using the ‘Hey Meta, take a photo/video’ voice command. If you share those photos to a product — for example, Meta AI, cloud services or a third-party product — then the policies of that product will apply.“
Second, Meta is taking after Amazon by no longer allowing Ray-Ban Meta owners to opt out of having their voice recordings stored in the cloud. “The option to disable voice recordings storage is no longer available, but you can delete recordings anytime in settings,” the company wrote. In its voice privacy notice, Meta states that “voice transcripts and stored audio recordings are otherwise stored for up to one year to help improve Meta’s products.” If the company detects that a voice interaction was accidental, those recordings are deleted after a shorter 90-day window.
The motivation behind these changes is clear: Meta wants to continue providing its AI models with heaps of data on which to train and improve subsequent results. Some users began noticing these policy changes in March, but at least in the United States, Meta says they went into effect as of April 29th.
Earlier this month, the company rolled out a live translation feature to the Ray-Ban Meta product. And just yesterday, Meta rolled out a standalone Meta AI app on smartphones to more directly compete with Open AI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and other AI chatbots.
The company is reportedly planning a higher-end pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses for release later in 2025. The current glasses lineup starts at $299, but the more premium version could cost around $1,000. Meta is set to report its Q1 2025 earnings later on Wednesday, and the company is likely to address the tariff chaos that has roiled markets in recent months.
Update April 30th, 6:00PM ET: The article has been updated to clarify details and with a statement from Meta.
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Chris Welch<![CDATA[Google is killing software support for early Nest Thermostats]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=6563322025-04-25T16:16:43-04:002025-04-25T13:00:00-04:00
Google has just announced that it’s ending software updates for the first-generation Nest Learning Thermostat, released in 2011, and the second-gen model that came a year later. This decision also affects the European Nest Learning Thermostat from 2014. “You will no longer be able to control them remotely from your phone or with Google Assistant, but can still adjust the temperature and modify schedules directly on the thermostat,“ the company wrote in a Friday blog post.
The cutoff date for software updates and general support within the Google Home and Nest apps is October 25th.
No more controlling these “smart” thermostats from a phone.
In other significant news, Google is flatly stating that it has no plans to release additional Nest thermostats in Europe. “Heating systems in Europe are unique and have a variety of hardware and software requirements that make it challenging to build for the diverse set of homes,“ the company said. “The Nest Learning Thermostat (3rd gen, 2015) and Nest Thermostat E (2018) will continue to be sold in Europe while current supplies last.”
Losing the ability to control these smart thermostats from a phone will inevitably frustrate customers who’ve had Nest hardware in their home for many years now. Google’s not breaking their core functionality, but a lot of the appeal and convenience will disappear as software support winds down. The early Nest Learning Thermostats can at least be used locally without Wi-Fi, which isn’t true of newer models. There’s one bright spot for owners of recent Nest Thermostats: Google says owners “will be able to create and adjust schedules” from the Google Home app later this year for the first time.
Still, this type of phase-out is a very real fear tied to smart home devices as companies put screens into more and more appliances. Is 14 years a reasonable lifespan for the these gadgets before their smarts fade away? There’s no indication that Google plans to open source the hardware.
In a clear attempt to ease customer anger, Google is offering a $130 discount on the fourth-gen Nest Learning Thermostat in the US, $160 off the same device in Canada, and 50 percent savings on the Tado Smart Thermostat X in Europe since the Nest lineup will soon be gone.
The original Nest thermostats were released while the company was an independent brand under the leadership of former Apple executive Tony Fadell. Google acquired Nest in 2014 for $3.2 billion.
