Setting Up Your Home Office

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. While we’ve reviewed Anker’s Solix C800 and covered deals on the C1000—whose second-gen version even earned a Guinness World Record for being the fastest recharging portable power station in the 1,000Wh category—Anker has added another new and improved solar generator to its lineup. The brand’s newest portable power station, released in October 2025, is the Anker Solix C2000 Gen 2, and it’s currently 52% off on Amazon at $719.10 (originally $1,499). Anker Solix C2000 Gen 2 Portable Power Stati…

The healthcare sector is one of the most common targets for hackers and cyber criminals, and yet another data breach has put the personal data of more than a million patients at risk. Community Health Center (CHC), a nonprofit healthcare provider in Connecticut, has disclosed that hackers gained access to its system in October and stole sensitive health and personal information belonging to 1,060,936 individuals. What happened with CHC? According to reporting by Bleeping Computer, hackers had access to the CHC network for several hours on October 14, 2024, though the breach was not discovered until January 2, 2025. Stolen data may include names, birthdates, addresses, ph…

Bad news, OpenClaw fans: Anthropic wants you to pay more to use its AI models. This wasn't something Anthropic necessarily announced, either; rather, the company started sending emails to affected users, letting them know they could no longer use their Claude Code subscription limits with third-party "harnesses," including—and most notabl—OpenClaw. Anthropic confirmed users could still connect to OpenClaw with their Claude account, but they'd have to pay more money in order to do so—including a "pay-as-you-go" option tacked onto the cost of the subscription. According to Anthropic, this policy change isn't without logic or reason. As highlighted by TechCrunch, Boris Cher…

While it doesn't have quite the same prominence as ChatGPT or Google Gemini, the Claude AI bot developed by Anthropic continues to improve and innovate. Brand new Claude 4 models are now available, promising upgrades in coding, reasoning, precision, and the ability to manage long-running tasks independently. There are two new models, Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4, and Anthropic says they're both "setting new standards" for what you can expect from AI. Coding is a big focus, and the models are said to have achieved the highest scores to date on two widely used AI coding benchmarking tools, SWE-bench and Terminal-bench. Claude 4 models can actually work for hours on pro…

You've no doubt explored the app that came along with your smart lights, and found several handy tricks within—from getting your lights to turn on at scheduled times, to cycling between different colors and brightness settings over the course of the day. There's plenty more you can do, however, with the help of IFTTT. IFTTT (If This Then That) is a long-established web and mobile app for plugging different services into each other. It can, for example, automatically share Instagram photos to X (but only when a specific hashtag is used); forward SMS messages to your email; export Fitbit stats to Google Sheets; and plenty more—there are a wealth of options to explore. The t…

There's a brand new Apple app in town: Apple Invites gives you everything you need to organize a get-together, from picking a guest list beforehand, to sharing photos and videos of the event afterwards. While you need to be a paying iCloud subscriber to create events, anyone can respond to and interact with them—but predictably, there's no native Android app. And I think that's something Apple needs to look at. Admittedly, Android users aren't left out of the Apple Invites party altogether, but they have to put up with a slower and less capable web-based interface in their mobile browser—an option a lot of iOS apps go for, rather than developing an actual Android version.…

When it's time to buy a new car, you don't necessarily need to stick with the one you had before. You don't lose your cloud-based photos by switching from Toyota to Subaru, nor will your friends yell at you for ruining the group chat by buying a Kia. That's not the case with smartphones: When you buy an iPhone, it's tough to switch away from it. The same goes for Android: While it's easy enough to switch within the Android ecosystem, such as between Pixel or Galaxy, moving from Android to iPhone can also be a pain. Tech companies tend to make it tempting to stick with their platform, and introduce friction when you try to leave. That, of course, is entirely business-base…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. It's been nearly five years since Apple released the first—and only—AirTag, but that's not necessarily a surprise: These trackers aren't really the kind of product you expect to update every year or two. Unlike an iPhone, which gets new processors, cameras, and other hardware features every year, AirTags just ... track your stuff. The only thing that needs replacing annually are their batteries; otherwise, they do exactly what you expect them to. That said, Apple has made changes over the years. In response to initial criticism, the company made it much more difficult for someone to slip one of these AirTags in your bag o…

Apple's next big update, iOS 26.4, is nearly here. While it won't include the company's long-awaited AI Siri upgrade, you will find new emojis, AI-generated playlists in Apple Music, and support for end-to-end encryption for RCS. But perhaps most welcome of all, to at least some iOS users, is one key patch: Apple is finally fixing the iPhone's buggy keyboard. iOS 26.4 patches this iPhone keyboard glitchIn the release notes for iOS 26.4's Release Candidate, Apple lists many of the new additions we've already seen in previous beta updates. But buried at the bottom of Apple's list of "enhancements" is the following: "Improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly." That's..…

Last year, I advised readers that the "second-generation" AirPods Max were actually a worse deal than the original pair. Apple was charging $549 for headphones that were virtually identical to the pair that launched in 2020, only with USB-C instead of Lightning. What's more, Apple actually took away a feature with the USB-C pair: Unlike the Lightning AirPods Max, the USB-C model was not compatible with 3.5mm adapter, meaning you couldn't use them for wired playback. Seeing as the Lightning AirPods Max are frequently on sale by around $150, it seemed silly to recommend the newer, more expensive AirPods Max—unless you really couldn't live without USB-C. That is, until toda…

Some iOS users are getting an extra layer of privacy when it comes to how their location data is shared. Limit Precise Location is a new setting that prevents some Apple devices from broadcasting specific locations to cell carriers. Precise location sharing is useful, even essential, in some cases, such as when you're navigating with your maps app. But you may not want to constantly be sending your exact address to your phone provider, where it could be used for malicious purposes. If you enable Limit Precise Location, your iOS device will share your general area instead. Precise location sharing comes with privacy risksAs TechCrunch points out, precise location sharing…

Every tech product you own has a “lifespan,” and I'm not referring to how long you use it before it stops working, you break it, or decide to buy a new one. Instead, this is how long the device will be officially supported by its maker—a timeframe that could be shorter or longer than how long it will actually last. Apple guarantees it will continue supporting products at least five years after it stops selling them. Once those five years are up, Apple can deem that device “vintage." Apple recently classified two more of its products as vintage: the iPhone 7 Plus (2016) and some iPhone 8 models (2017)—while the 64GB and 256GB iPhone 8 models are now vintage, the 128GB is …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. When the Powerbeats Pro 2 came out earlier this year, with their in-ear heart rate sensors, I had a hard time getting them to read my heart rate accurately from my ears. Now, with iOS 26, Apple and Beats are introducing some new fitness features that make these headphones work better as heart rate sensors. They also apply to the new AirPods Pro 3, which also measure heart rate. I tested the new features, and found that the experience is much improved—but sti…

iOS 26 is one of Apple's biggest operating system updates in years. The new "Liquid Glass" design, while controversial, offers the first major UI overhaul since iOS 7, while new features like call screening and hold assist might change the way your make and receive phone calls. If you have an iPhone, you may be tempted to install the new update—and, seeing as it has been out for a week and a half now, you might have updated already. If you haven't installed iOS 26, yet, however, think twice before you do, because you're going to be stuck with it: Apple has made it impossible to downgrade and return to iOS 18. You can't go back to iOS 18As reported by MacRumors, Apple sto…

When you think about the tech companies leading the AI race, Apple is pretty much at the bottom of the list. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as far as I'm concerned. From where I'm sitting, many of us couldn't care less about the latest AI features companies are shoving into their products—we just want the products we actually use to work, and work well. But strictly focusing on AI progress, Apple is far behind rivals like Google and Microsoft. While Android and Windows are full of AI features, either through Google's Gemini or OpenAI's GPT models, Apple's first-party AI advances are much more limited. Both Google and Microsoft promote their AI assistants as a corner…

Apple Intelligence had a slow rollout, launching with a waitlist and only recently allowing access to AI images and its emoji generator. But following yesterday's release of iOS 18.3/iPadOS 18.3/MacOS 15.3, it seems Apple is finally ready to follow Microsoft and Google’s leads and start putting its AI features front-and-center. According to the update's release notes, Apple Intelligence has gone from an opt-in feature to an opt-out one. In other words, if you have an AI-compatible iPhone (meaning the iPhone 15 Pro and above) or iPad (meaning it has an A17 chip or above), Apple Intelligence will be toggled on by default as soon as you upgrade. As seen in a separate post he…

When Apple released the first beta for iOS 26.4 this week, testers immediately got to work looking for each and every new feature and change. To their credit, there's more new here than in iOS 26.3, including an AI playlist generator for Apple Music and support for end-to-end encryption with RCS (finally). But one update slipped under the radar, since it's not actually available to test in this first beta: CarPlay support for AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. AI assistants are coming to CarPlay in iOS 26.4As spotted by MacRumors, CarPlay's Developer Guide spills the beans on this upcoming integration. On page 13, the entitlement "CarPlay voice-based conversa…

It's been nearly two years since Apple announced a more intelligent Siri, and yet, we're still waiting to get our hands on it. Aside from being able to answer a few questions about Apple products or shunt your questions off to ChatGPT for you, the voice assistant is essentially still the same it was before Apple Intelligence launched for other Apple features in iOS 18.1. Now, the iPhone maker seems to be throwing in the towel on developing an AI-enabled Siri entirely on its own, and is asking Google for help. I can't imagine Tim Cook is too happy about that, but on the flip side, that does mean an AI Siri might finally come out, and soon. In a statement to CNBC's Jim Cram…

One of the nicest things about Apple software, at least in theory, is its uncluttered design. That's why many users (myself included) were annoyed when Safari's Compact Tabs feature was dropped in macOS 26 or iPadOS 26. It was a great way to neaten up your browser bar, and people have been complaining about the missing feature ever since. Happily, the complainers now have something to look forward to, as the upcoming ‌macOS Tahoe‌ 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4 releases will bring back the Compact Tab option, according to MacRumors. Their reporting shows a screenshot of the Safari settings on macOS, with "Separate" and "Compact" tab style both on offer. Why I love Compact TabsHere'…

Apple is making a big change to Family Sharing with iOS 26.4: Once the update hits, you'll be able to use your own payment method in Family Sharing groups that have Purchase Sharing turned on. This might sound small, but it's a significant change to how Apple handles payments in these situations. Payment Sharing no longer exclusively goes through the family organizer Payment Sharing can be a convenient way for Family Sharing groups to take advantage of shared plans and content. That could include subscriptions, like Apple One, Apple Music, Apple TV, or Apple News+; purchased music from iTunes; movies and TV shows from the Apple TV app; books from Apple Books; or apps bo…

Perhaps the best thing to happen to smartphones in the past five years was Apple's decision to start supporting RCS. Ever since, texting between iPhone and Android hasn't been a nightmare caused by SMS: Group chats function as they should, photos and videos can be sent in high quality, and you can even see when the other person is typing—though the messages are still green. While the experience is miles better than it used to be, it isn't perfect. There are still some key functions missing from RCS on iPhone. For instance, you can't unsend messages, reply to a thread, or edit iPhone messages. The latter can only happen on the Android side, while only iPhones can react wi…

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. Apple has reportedly paused its plan to revamp its Vision Pro headset in favor of speeding up development of smart glasses. According to Bloomberg, Apple internally announced last week that it was shifting employees and resources away from the next iteration of the Vision Pro and towards developing two models of yet unnamed Apple-branded smart glasses. The first Apple glasses, codenamed N50, are audio-and-AI-focused spectacles designed to pair with iPhones, similar to the first generation of Ray-Ban Meta gl…

AI has been the tech buzzword over the last few years, but it's stolen attention from other technological advancements that are possibly more impactful in your everyday life. Take satellite connectivity for example: For most of the time cellphones and smartphones have existed, losing cell signal meant your mobile device was largely useless. With satellite connectivity, however, as long as you're within range of a satellite, you can continue to make calls and send texts. It's remarkable, for both the convenience of communication, as well as your safety. Right now, there are only a few companies leading the satellite connectivity charge, at least as far as consumer technol…

Apple Music has been steadily getting useful new features since the release of iOS 26, and the latest changes are especially exciting. Finally, the music streaming service is adding support for offline lyrics, which will officially come in iOS 26.2 when it releases in the next few weeks (although you can try them out now via the iOS 26.2 beta). Meanwhile, in iOS 26.1, users got the ability to swipe on the mini player to go to the next or previous song in their lineup, alongside enhanced AI DJ features and playlist folders for improved music organization. These followed previous additions, such as lyrics translation, a new DJ-like feature called AutoMix, and animated cover…