The best apps download superpowers to your smartphone. The Verge covers the new and noteworthy Android apps, iPhone apps, and games, highlighting great design, impressive utility, and novel features. If it belongs on your phone, you’ll find it on The Verge.
An update rolling out today will allow Slackbot to do things like summarize information across multiple channels, help you sort through messages, and find time to schedule meetings with colleagues. The updated Slackbot is coming to Business Plus and Enterprise Plus customers following last year’s test.
While trying to find vacation info, the chatbot told a WSJ reporter that “Tripadvisor is being a little useless.” They tested several chatbot AI apps, and apparently, Instacart is one of the better ones -- having your former CEO become OpenAI’s “CEO of Applications” must have helped.
Other apps were slow, buggy, and complicated, and, at this stage, still slower than traditional iPhone apps.
Just like last year, Apple has announced new fitness content that will start rolling out next week (if you want to try another app, we’ve got suggestions).
There are new multi-week Strength, HIIT, or Yoga Fitness Comeback workouts, new music playlists, a Strava challenge for Apple Watch owners, and new Time to Walk audio episodes with Penn Badgley, Mel B, and Michelle Monaghan.
After going a year between his first and second videos investigating the PayPal-owned shopping extension, MegaLag didn’t make us wait long for part three.
Here, he says he has evidence of how Honey evaded detection by affiliate networks with “stand-down” rules against referral-fee-stealing behavior, and responses to Honey co-founder Ryan Hudson’s Reddit AMA. PayPal has not responded to requests for comment.
Beyond part one’s exposure of affiliate revenue hijacking, MegaLag digs into Honey’s “extortion” by adding limited-use “friends and family” type discounts and lying to the store owners about never removing codes for unaffiliated businesses while trying to sign them up as partners.
Other misdeeds described include marketing Honey’s for-adult-use-only browser extension to kids in partnership with channels like Mr Beast, who encouraged kids to install it everywhere they could, while collecting data on everyone who installed its extension, even if they never signed up. And despite a cease-and-desist from PayPal’s lawyers, this series isn’t over yet.
Apple knows that search is the most common way to find and download apps in the App Store. So in 2026, it’s going to inject even more ads into those results. Right now ads appear at the top, pushing down the things you’re actually looking for, but soon they’ll also be sprinkled into the slots below.
Say it with me: enshittification.
As part of Zoom’s AI Companion 3.0 update, the company rolled out a web-based interface for its AI assistant that allows users to recap meetings, generate daily reports, and create to-do lists outside the video conferencing client. Users can try out the web-based AI Companion by navigating to ai.zoom.us.
The new feature was recently announced by Rio Akasaka, Google Maps’ senior product manager, as spotted by 9to5Google. You’ll need to first connect your iPhone to your car through USB, Bluetooth, or CarPlay, but when you’re done driving Google Maps will automatically save your vehicle’s location for 48 hours, or until you start driving again.
The platform, which now has more than 100 million verified users, is launching a new self-serve API to allow a wider range of businesses to display LinkedIn’s verification badge across their platform, app, or website.
It’s also partnering with Zoom to display “Verified on LinkedIn” badges during video calls, building on its existing partnership with Adobe.
Google’s experimental clothing try-on app now lets you scroll through a “discovery” feed of AI-generated videos with outfits you might like. The app curates the looks — which contain real products — based on the “style preferences you share with Doppl and the items you interact with.”
Your Discord Checkpoint shows how many messages you sent, your favorite servers, which friends you spent the most time with, and a whole bunch more. You can find your end-of-year stats by opening the Discord app, tapping You on the bottom-right, and selecting the Checkpoint banner.
First announced as part of the November Pixel Drop, the feature gives Google Maps a simplified black and white interface when you press the power button while navigating with your phone in portrait mode. Google says the feature can extend battery life up to 4 hours while still displaying basic directions including upcoming turns.
Apple noted requirement as part of its updated App Review Guidelines changelog:
5.1.2(i): Clarifies that you must clearly disclose where personal data will be shared with third parties, including with third-party AI, and obtain explicit permission before doing so.
You can see the full guidelines on Apple’s website.
A new test with Instacart will allow some guests in Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, and Orlando to order groceries before they arrive at their stay, as first reported by Bloomberg.
Airbnb spokesperson Tom Korolyshun confirmed to The Verge that the company “will pilot groceries with Instacart in select markets across the US beginning in January.”
A spokesperson tells Variety that the integration will arrive in the “coming weeks,” allowing users to go back and forth between listening to a song and watching the music video. Spotify brought music videos to countries outside the US last year with support for select artists, including Charlie XCX, Doja Cat, Ed Sheeran, and others.
