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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Apple heavily sprinkled mentions of AI throughout its iPhone 16 event on Monday. However, generative Apple Intelligence features won’t be ready for the public launch of iOS 18 on September 16th or the new iPhones when they’re released on September 20th.
The first set of Apple’s AI features is scheduled for public availability next month in most regions — except the EU — as part of a beta test for iPhone 15 Pro and all iPhone 16s, plus Macs and iPads with M1 or higher Apple Silicon chips. At launch, they’ll be available in US English only.
What’s coming to Apple Intelligence in October
Writing Tools

Text Rewrite: Text Rewrite will morph your email writing draft into a more professional one, and you can change the tone to be friendly or concise as well.

Proofread: As in real life, this proofreading feature should correct your grammar and sentence structure and suggest better words throughout your work.

Summarize Text: It will be like letting AI do a TL;DR for you. Summarize Text will shorten your writing to just the important parts or create a bulleted list or table.

Screenshot: Allison Johnson / The Verge
Apple Intelligence made this table from a scruffy list.

Smart Reply: We’ve seen this AI feature shown off quite a bit. Smart Reply will give you a few contextual suggestions to get you started on a reply in Mail or elsewhere.
New Siri

GIF: Apple
The new Siri glows up.

New look: On iPhone, iPad, or CarPlay, Siri will appear as a rainbow ring around the edges of the screen, and on Mac, Siri can float and be placed anywhere on your desktop.

Apple’s new language model: Siri should also get a bit smarter and better at parsing natural language thanks to Apple’s on-device language model. Meanwhile, more complex questions will be sent to Apple’s “Private Cloud Compute” server, which Apple claims acts as a computational extension to your device and does not retain any data.

Type to Siri: Instead of talking, you’ll be able to type questions to the assistant anytime.

Screenshot: Allison Johnson / The Verge
Sometimes you don’t want to talk to your phone to get stuff done faster.

Photos

Clean Up: Similar to Google’s Magic Eraser, Clean Up will remove unwanted objects in your photos.

Search: You’ll be able to search for photos using natural language to find specific subjects you’re looking for but can’t find scrolling through your library.

Memories: You’ll be able to make a movie using media from your Photos library by writing out a prompt, and it should create a narratively driven story with chapters.

Transcription

Phone call recording and transcription: You’ll be able to record phone calls and get a transcription of the whole call. Activating this feature will tell all parties that the call is being recorded.

Voice recordings in Notes: You’ll be able to record audio within the actual Notes app, and it will transcribe speech into text. You can also use Apple’s other writing tools to help summarize the whole session.

These Apple Intelligence features are arriving later
Apple says other AI features will “roll out later this year and in the months following.” That means these features could arrive as soon as October, or they could arrive next summer or fall. Unfortunately, these are also some of the most eye-catching features coming to Apple Intelligence.

Image: Apple
A combination of using Apple’s Visual Intelligence and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to analyze a photo of a Mediterranean coastline and how to set up a photoshoot there.

Visual Intelligence: Apple’s new Visual Intelligence introduced during the iPhone 16 presentation can search for things by just snapping a photo. You could, for instance, take a picture of a cafe storefront and get information about it, like hours and its menu, or take a photo of a concert poster and add it to your calendar. Visual Intelligence, when it arrives, will be activated using the Camera Control side button on iPhone 16 and 16 Pro.

Genmoji: You’ll be able to create your own emoji by entering a text prompt, and Apple’s image generator will make you a new emoji you can send to friends.

Image: Apple
Make your own emojis.

Image Playground: In addition to making custom emoji, Apple Intelligence will also eventually create custom images. Enter a text prompt for whatever image you’d like (assume some actual restrictions will apply), and Apple’s models will conjure up a picture for you.

Siri Personal Context: Siri’s usefulness will evolve later by contextually helping you with onscreen information on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

OpenAI connection: Anywhere there are Apple Intelligence writing tools, you will also have the option to use ChatGPT for additional generative AI options. ChatGPT should also be able to process your Siri requests for more advanced answers to questions.

Third-party app connections with Siri: Apple’s also promising Siri will, one day, complete in-app requests, like making photo edits in an image editing app using pictures in your Photos app.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Apple heavily sprinkled mentions of AI throughout its iPhone 16 event on Monday. However, generative Apple Intelligence features won’t be ready for the public launch of iOS 18 on September 16th or the new iPhones when they’re released on September 20th.

The first set of Apple’s AI features is scheduled for public availability next month in most regions — except the EU — as part of a beta test for iPhone 15 Pro and all iPhone 16s, plus Macs and iPads with M1 or higher Apple Silicon chips. At launch, they’ll be available in US English only.

What’s coming to Apple Intelligence in October

Writing Tools

Text Rewrite: Text Rewrite will morph your email writing draft into a more professional one, and you can change the tone to be friendly or concise as well.

Proofread: As in real life, this proofreading feature should correct your grammar and sentence structure and suggest better words throughout your work.

Summarize Text: It will be like letting AI do a TL;DR for you. Summarize Text will shorten your writing to just the important parts or create a bulleted list or table.

Screenshot: Allison Johnson / The Verge
Apple Intelligence made this table from a scruffy list.

Smart Reply: We’ve seen this AI feature shown off quite a bit. Smart Reply will give you a few contextual suggestions to get you started on a reply in Mail or elsewhere.

New Siri

GIF: Apple
The new Siri glows up.

New look: On iPhone, iPad, or CarPlay, Siri will appear as a rainbow ring around the edges of the screen, and on Mac, Siri can float and be placed anywhere on your desktop.

Apple’s new language model: Siri should also get a bit smarter and better at parsing natural language thanks to Apple’s on-device language model. Meanwhile, more complex questions will be sent to Apple’s “Private Cloud Compute” server, which Apple claims acts as a computational extension to your device and does not retain any data.

Type to Siri: Instead of talking, you’ll be able to type questions to the assistant anytime.

Screenshot: Allison Johnson / The Verge
Sometimes you don’t want to talk to your phone to get stuff done faster.

Photos

Clean Up: Similar to Google’s Magic Eraser, Clean Up will remove unwanted objects in your photos.

Search: You’ll be able to search for photos using natural language to find specific subjects you’re looking for but can’t find scrolling through your library.

Memories: You’ll be able to make a movie using media from your Photos library by writing out a prompt, and it should create a narratively driven story with chapters.

Transcription

Phone call recording and transcription: You’ll be able to record phone calls and get a transcription of the whole call. Activating this feature will tell all parties that the call is being recorded.

Voice recordings in Notes: You’ll be able to record audio within the actual Notes app, and it will transcribe speech into text. You can also use Apple’s other writing tools to help summarize the whole session.

These Apple Intelligence features are arriving later

Apple says other AI features will “roll out later this year and in the months following.” That means these features could arrive as soon as October, or they could arrive next summer or fall. Unfortunately, these are also some of the most eye-catching features coming to Apple Intelligence.

Image: Apple
A combination of using Apple’s Visual Intelligence and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to analyze a photo of a Mediterranean coastline and how to set up a photoshoot there.

Visual Intelligence: Apple’s new Visual Intelligence introduced during the iPhone 16 presentation can search for things by just snapping a photo. You could, for instance, take a picture of a cafe storefront and get information about it, like hours and its menu, or take a photo of a concert poster and add it to your calendar. Visual Intelligence, when it arrives, will be activated using the Camera Control side button on iPhone 16 and 16 Pro.

Genmoji: You’ll be able to create your own emoji by entering a text prompt, and Apple’s image generator will make you a new emoji you can send to friends.

Image: Apple
Make your own emojis.

Image Playground: In addition to making custom emoji, Apple Intelligence will also eventually create custom images. Enter a text prompt for whatever image you’d like (assume some actual restrictions will apply), and Apple’s models will conjure up a picture for you.

Siri Personal Context: Siri’s usefulness will evolve later by contextually helping you with onscreen information on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

OpenAI connection: Anywhere there are Apple Intelligence writing tools, you will also have the option to use ChatGPT for additional generative AI options. ChatGPT should also be able to process your Siri requests for more advanced answers to questions.

Third-party app connections with Siri: Apple’s also promising Siri will, one day, complete in-app requests, like making photo edits in an image editing app using pictures in your Photos app.

Read More 

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is launching its Xbox Game Pass Standard tier today. After briefly testing it with Xbox Insiders last month, the new $14.99 per month Game Pass Standard subscription is launching with the usual Game Pass library for Xbox and online console multiplayer access, too. This new tier doesn’t include immediate access to day-one game releases, though.
Microsoft first revealed this new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier in July, alongside price increases for Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers. Existing subscribers of Xbox Game Pass for Console will continue to be able to access day-one games, but new Game Pass subscribers will now only be able to pick between Core, Standard, PC, and Ultimate subscriptions.

Image: Microsoft
The new Xbox Game Pass lineup.

Xbox Game Pass Standard will eventually get new first-party Xbox games and other titles, with Microsoft clarifying recently that “some games coming to Game Pass Ultimate (day one games or other game entries) will not be immediately available with Game Pass Standard and may be added to the library at a future date (can be up to 12 months or more and will vary by title).”
That means that if you want day-one titles and you’re not already subscribed to Xbox Game Pass, only PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate offer that perk now. The new Game Pass lineup includes:

Xbox Game Pass core: $9.99 per month, with over 25 games, online console multiplayer, and deals / discounts

Xbox Game Pass Standard: $14.99 per month, with hundreds of games, online console multiplayer, and deals / discounts

PC Game Pass: $11.99 per month, with hundreds of games, recent day-one titles, EA Play, and deals / discounts

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: $19.99 per month, with hundreds of games, recent day-one titles, EA Play, online console multiplayer, and deals / discounts and perks

Xbox Game Pass Standard arrives just in time for the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Game Pass in October.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is launching its Xbox Game Pass Standard tier today. After briefly testing it with Xbox Insiders last month, the new $14.99 per month Game Pass Standard subscription is launching with the usual Game Pass library for Xbox and online console multiplayer access, too. This new tier doesn’t include immediate access to day-one game releases, though.

Microsoft first revealed this new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier in July, alongside price increases for Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers. Existing subscribers of Xbox Game Pass for Console will continue to be able to access day-one games, but new Game Pass subscribers will now only be able to pick between Core, Standard, PC, and Ultimate subscriptions.

Image: Microsoft
The new Xbox Game Pass lineup.

Xbox Game Pass Standard will eventually get new first-party Xbox games and other titles, with Microsoft clarifying recently that “some games coming to Game Pass Ultimate (day one games or other game entries) will not be immediately available with Game Pass Standard and may be added to the library at a future date (can be up to 12 months or more and will vary by title).”

That means that if you want day-one titles and you’re not already subscribed to Xbox Game Pass, only PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate offer that perk now. The new Game Pass lineup includes:

Xbox Game Pass core: $9.99 per month, with over 25 games, online console multiplayer, and deals / discounts

Xbox Game Pass Standard: $14.99 per month, with hundreds of games, online console multiplayer, and deals / discounts

PC Game Pass: $11.99 per month, with hundreds of games, recent day-one titles, EA Play, and deals / discounts

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: $19.99 per month, with hundreds of games, recent day-one titles, EA Play, online console multiplayer, and deals / discounts and perks

Xbox Game Pass Standard arrives just in time for the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Game Pass in October.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

This weekend, ESPN began publishing AI-generated recaps of women’s soccer games, with more sports to come. It’s using Microsoft AI to write each story, with humans only involved in reviewing each recap for “quality and accuracy.” ESPN says these stories will “augment,” rather than detract from, its other content — but needless to say, people have feelings about it.
It’s not that ESPN is masquerading AI work as that of humans. In fact, each story advertises that it’s written by “ESPN Generative AI Services,” and ESPN includes a note at the bottom of each article about how the recap is based on a transcript from the sporting event.
ESPN isn’t the only news organization that does this; The Associated Press started using AI to write sports recaps back in 2016, and both organizations pitch this as a way to cover more underserved sports. In addition to soccer, ESPN will also use it for lacrosse.
But so far, the stories are very bland, basic write-ups — and they’re already missing important nuance, as Parker Molloy points out. One of the National Women’s Soccer League stories failed to mention the significance of one player’s final game and the emotional moments that happened as a result, something ESPN waved at with a later update to the story.

No mention of Alex Morgan at all in ESPN’s AI-generated recap of the final game of her professional career.The article did provide analysis on the performance of her teammate Kennedy Wesley, noting that she contributed “defensively as well as on offense” in Sunday’s game. pic.twitter.com/bKpuGmfaSK— Sports TV News & Updates (@TVSportsUpdates) September 9, 2024

ESPN argued that the AI summaries free up its writers to focus on more in-depth work like “more differentiating features, analysis, investigative, and breaking news coverage,” and in this instance, a human reporter did write an entire story about Alex Morgan’s emotional exit.

Columnist Tom Jones wrote for Poynter last week that despite ESPN’s justification that AI frees up journalists for more impactful work, there’s nothing stopping ESPN “from using AI to cover more and more other sports” down the line.
Jones points to Luis Paez-Pumar’s column for Defector, where he writes that ESPN is “feeding existing soccer and lacrosse journalists’ work into a machine aimed at making them obsolete” rather than hiring them to do this work.
ESPN says it does indeed plan to extend these AI recaps to more sports. Soccer and lacrosse are merely “its first experimentation with AI-generated content.”
Musicians, news organizations, and other creatives are fighting the rise of AI in court, arguing it trains on the work of humans without permission.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

This weekend, ESPN began publishing AI-generated recaps of women’s soccer games, with more sports to come. It’s using Microsoft AI to write each story, with humans only involved in reviewing each recap for “quality and accuracy.” ESPN says these stories will “augment,” rather than detract from, its other content — but needless to say, people have feelings about it.

It’s not that ESPN is masquerading AI work as that of humans. In fact, each story advertises that it’s written by “ESPN Generative AI Services,” and ESPN includes a note at the bottom of each article about how the recap is based on a transcript from the sporting event.

ESPN isn’t the only news organization that does this; The Associated Press started using AI to write sports recaps back in 2016, and both organizations pitch this as a way to cover more underserved sports. In addition to soccer, ESPN will also use it for lacrosse.

But so far, the stories are very bland, basic write-ups — and they’re already missing important nuance, as Parker Molloy points out. One of the National Women’s Soccer League stories failed to mention the significance of one player’s final game and the emotional moments that happened as a result, something ESPN waved at with a later update to the story.

ESPN argued that the AI summaries free up its writers to focus on more in-depth work like “more differentiating features, analysis, investigative, and breaking news coverage,” and in this instance, a human reporter did write an entire story about Alex Morgan’s emotional exit.

Columnist Tom Jones wrote for Poynter last week that despite ESPN’s justification that AI frees up journalists for more impactful work, there’s nothing stopping ESPN “from using AI to cover more and more other sports” down the line.

Jones points to Luis Paez-Pumar’s column for Defector, where he writes that ESPN is “feeding existing soccer and lacrosse journalists’ work into a machine aimed at making them obsolete” rather than hiring them to do this work.

ESPN says it does indeed plan to extend these AI recaps to more sports. Soccer and lacrosse are merely “its first experimentation with AI-generated content.”

Musicians, news organizations, and other creatives are fighting the rise of AI in court, arguing it trains on the work of humans without permission.

Read More 

The replacement AirPods Max ear cushions in the new color options are now available. | Image: Apple

If you’re envious of the new AirPods Max colors but don’t think a switch from Apple’s proprietary Lightning port to USB-C is enough reason to upgrade, you can now buy replacement ear cushions in the new colorways that are still compatible with the original version of the headphones, as MacRumors discovered.
The ear cushions are now listed in Apple’s online store at $69 for a set in blue, orange, purple, midnight, or starlight, with shipping expected the next day. The new USB-C version of the AirPods Max are currently available for preorder but won’t ship until September 20th.
Apple is still selling replacement ear cushions matching the colors of the original Lightning version of the AirPods Max, including green, silver, black, sky blue, and red. However, the Lightning version of the actual headphones appears to be discontinued on Apple’s online store. The only option for purchasing AirPods Max through Apple now is the new USB-C version in the five new colorways.

The replacement AirPods Max ear cushions in the new color options are now available. | Image: Apple

If you’re envious of the new AirPods Max colors but don’t think a switch from Apple’s proprietary Lightning port to USB-C is enough reason to upgrade, you can now buy replacement ear cushions in the new colorways that are still compatible with the original version of the headphones, as MacRumors discovered.

The ear cushions are now listed in Apple’s online store at $69 for a set in blue, orange, purple, midnight, or starlight, with shipping expected the next day. The new USB-C version of the AirPods Max are currently available for preorder but won’t ship until September 20th.

Apple is still selling replacement ear cushions matching the colors of the original Lightning version of the AirPods Max, including green, silver, black, sky blue, and red. However, the Lightning version of the actual headphones appears to be discontinued on Apple’s online store. The only option for purchasing AirPods Max through Apple now is the new USB-C version in the five new colorways.

Read More 

Image: Apple

Apple’s all in on AI — at least Apple’s version. “The next generation of iPhone has been designed for Apple Intelligence from the ground up,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said before revealing the iPhone 16. Software chief Craig Federighi pitched Apple Intelligence as a “personal intelligence system” that’s at “the heart of the iPhone 16 lineup.” After the event, Apple even published a whole press release dedicated to Apple Intelligence.
There’s just one catch: when the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro first come out, they won’t have any Apple Intelligence features.
Sure, the new A18 and A18 Pro chips in the iPhone 16 lineup each have a 16-core Neural Engine that Apple says is “optimized for large generative models,” so they will probably be good at handling Apple Intelligence features. Yes, Apple has been testing Apple Intelligence upgrades, like a new design for Siri and tools that can help you improve your writing, remove objects from photos, and summarize notifications, as part of an iOS 18.1 beta for developers. But unless you’re running that beta, you won’t be able to put those features to the test for a while.
A few Apple Intelligence features will arrive soon-ish
A few Apple Intelligence features will arrive soon-ish, as Apple gave a vague October release window for iOS 18.1 as part of its iPhone 16 announcements. But I should note that the Apple Intelligence features will still be called a beta and only available in US English to start. (Apple says it will launch Apple Intelligence in Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish starting next year.) The company’s arguably more powerful Apple Intelligence upgrades, like a tool to make images, a feature that lets you generate custom emoji, Siri improvements that let it understand your personal context, and integration with ChatGPT are rolling out on a very vague timeline of “later this year and in the months following.”
There are some indications about when: Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that the image generation features will launch with iOS 18.2 in December, and Apple said at WWDC that the ChatGPT integration is set to launch “later this year.” But despite how much of a spotlight Apple is putting on its AI features, it’s being quite cagey about when those features might actually come out. Apple didn’t reply to a request for comment.

Despite how much the big tech companies have talked about AI over the past year or two, there are still concerns about AI tools, too. There’s the hallucinating and potential generating bad stuff and misinformation. And Apple Intelligence hasn’t exactly wowed beta testers with innovations or must-have tools. Apple’s slow rollout could give it time to work out issues.
But do you want to wait around until it does? If you were looking at Apple’s AI features as the main reason to get a new phone, you probably shouldn’t. Maybe just wait to upgrade until next year — or at least until October.

Image: Apple

Apple’s all in on AI — at least Apple’s version. “The next generation of iPhone has been designed for Apple Intelligence from the ground up,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said before revealing the iPhone 16. Software chief Craig Federighi pitched Apple Intelligence as a “personal intelligence system” that’s at “the heart of the iPhone 16 lineup.” After the event, Apple even published a whole press release dedicated to Apple Intelligence.

There’s just one catch: when the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro first come out, they won’t have any Apple Intelligence features.

Sure, the new A18 and A18 Pro chips in the iPhone 16 lineup each have a 16-core Neural Engine that Apple says is “optimized for large generative models,” so they will probably be good at handling Apple Intelligence features. Yes, Apple has been testing Apple Intelligence upgrades, like a new design for Siri and tools that can help you improve your writing, remove objects from photos, and summarize notifications, as part of an iOS 18.1 beta for developers. But unless you’re running that beta, you won’t be able to put those features to the test for a while.

A few Apple Intelligence features will arrive soon-ish, as Apple gave a vague October release window for iOS 18.1 as part of its iPhone 16 announcements. But I should note that the Apple Intelligence features will still be called a beta and only available in US English to start. (Apple says it will launch Apple Intelligence in Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish starting next year.) The company’s arguably more powerful Apple Intelligence upgrades, like a tool to make images, a feature that lets you generate custom emoji, Siri improvements that let it understand your personal context, and integration with ChatGPT are rolling out on a very vague timeline of “later this year and in the months following.”

There are some indications about when: Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that the image generation features will launch with iOS 18.2 in December, and Apple said at WWDC that the ChatGPT integration is set to launch “later this year.” But despite how much of a spotlight Apple is putting on its AI features, it’s being quite cagey about when those features might actually come out. Apple didn’t reply to a request for comment.

Despite how much the big tech companies have talked about AI over the past year or two, there are still concerns about AI tools, too. There’s the hallucinating and potential generating bad stuff and misinformation. And Apple Intelligence hasn’t exactly wowed beta testers with innovations or must-have tools. Apple’s slow rollout could give it time to work out issues.

But do you want to wait around until it does? If you were looking at Apple’s AI features as the main reason to get a new phone, you probably shouldn’t. Maybe just wait to upgrade until next year — or at least until October.

Read More 

Image: Intrepid Pictures

When Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House, Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass) adapts a Stephen King story, you might expect something spooky. That was true with his takes on Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game. It’s not the case with The Life of Chuck, which isn’t trying to creep you out or tap into your darkest nightmares. It’s a story about celebrating what we have while we have it — a feeling encapsulated by a dazzling seven-minute-long dance sequence from Tom Hiddleston.
The Life of Chuck actually starts out as a postapocalyptic tale. When Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a newly divorced high school teacher, is doing his parent / teacher interviews, no one is interested in test scores or behavior issues. Instead, the parents can’t stop talking about whether the internet is really down for good or how California is steadily crumbling into the ocean. One dad is moved to tears thinking about a life without Pornhub. The tragedies are so persistent that they’re impossible to ignore: major cities underwater, wildfires torching huge swaths of land, volcanoes erupting in Germany, and on the very same road that Marty takes to work, sinkholes swallowing up cars.
Then, things get weird. Marty notices a curious billboard thanking some guy named Charles “Chuck” Krantz (Hiddleston) for “39 great years!” There’s no other context. Then the ad appears everywhere. There are TV commercials and radio ads during NPR shows, and at one point, even a skywriter is thanking Chuck for his service. As the ads become more abundant, the world around it gets closer to what seems to be oblivion. Through it all, Marty can’t help but wonder: “Who the hell is Chuck?”
That’s how the film opens, but it’s the third act of The Life of Chuck, which moves in reverse. From there, we learn who Chuck is. He’s a successful accountant nearing 40 who has come to terms with the seeming banality of his life but, every so often, is drawn back to his childhood. That’s when his grandmother instilled a love of dance that blossomed in middle school but ultimately fizzled out.

Image: Intrepid Pictures

Then one day, while wandering the streets of Boston after spending all day at a financial conference, he hears a busker wailing on the drums, and he just can’t help himself: he drops his briefcase and starts to dance. It lasts seven whole minutes, and it’s hard to take your eyes off of Hiddleston when he moves. It’s spontaneous and joyful, and he can even pull off a pretty convincing moonwalk. The final act explores a younger Chuck (Jacob Tremblay) as he’s forced to deal with multiple tragedies and finds a way to cope through dance. Pretty soon, it brings things full circle with the film’s strange opening in a way that I won’t spoil.
What’s most remarkable about The Life of Chuck is the journey this structure takes you on. At first, as the world literally crumbles away, it creates a feeling that we’re all small and insignificant. But the rest of the film does the exact opposite: it shows how every life, even those that end far too quickly, is full of depth and wonder. The metaphor isn’t exactly subtle — this is a Mike Flanagan film, after all. And in some ways, The Life of Chuck indulges many of his worst tendencies, not only the lack of subtlety but also a penchant for lengthy monologues and schmaltz. Those elements can occasionally undermine his horror work, but they happen to suit The Life of Chuck perfectly.
Flanagan has always been a storyteller who uses horror as a way of exploring drama in a more heightened state. Here, he simply does away with the horror. The Life of Chuck doesn’t get away from his well-worn habits; rather, it’s an ideal vehicle for them. It’s also a fitting adaptation for another reason: in its very last moments, it turns out to be a haunting ghost story after all.
This review is based on a screening at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The Life of Chuck currently doesn’t have a theatrical premiere date.

Image: Intrepid Pictures

When Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House, Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass) adapts a Stephen King story, you might expect something spooky. That was true with his takes on Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game. It’s not the case with The Life of Chuck, which isn’t trying to creep you out or tap into your darkest nightmares. It’s a story about celebrating what we have while we have it — a feeling encapsulated by a dazzling seven-minute-long dance sequence from Tom Hiddleston.

The Life of Chuck actually starts out as a postapocalyptic tale. When Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a newly divorced high school teacher, is doing his parent / teacher interviews, no one is interested in test scores or behavior issues. Instead, the parents can’t stop talking about whether the internet is really down for good or how California is steadily crumbling into the ocean. One dad is moved to tears thinking about a life without Pornhub. The tragedies are so persistent that they’re impossible to ignore: major cities underwater, wildfires torching huge swaths of land, volcanoes erupting in Germany, and on the very same road that Marty takes to work, sinkholes swallowing up cars.

Then, things get weird. Marty notices a curious billboard thanking some guy named Charles “Chuck” Krantz (Hiddleston) for “39 great years!” There’s no other context. Then the ad appears everywhere. There are TV commercials and radio ads during NPR shows, and at one point, even a skywriter is thanking Chuck for his service. As the ads become more abundant, the world around it gets closer to what seems to be oblivion. Through it all, Marty can’t help but wonder: “Who the hell is Chuck?”

That’s how the film opens, but it’s the third act of The Life of Chuck, which moves in reverse. From there, we learn who Chuck is. He’s a successful accountant nearing 40 who has come to terms with the seeming banality of his life but, every so often, is drawn back to his childhood. That’s when his grandmother instilled a love of dance that blossomed in middle school but ultimately fizzled out.

Then one day, while wandering the streets of Boston after spending all day at a financial conference, he hears a busker wailing on the drums, and he just can’t help himself: he drops his briefcase and starts to dance. It lasts seven whole minutes, and it’s hard to take your eyes off of Hiddleston when he moves. It’s spontaneous and joyful, and he can even pull off a pretty convincing moonwalk. The final act explores a younger Chuck (Jacob Tremblay) as he’s forced to deal with multiple tragedies and finds a way to cope through dance. Pretty soon, it brings things full circle with the film’s strange opening in a way that I won’t spoil.

What’s most remarkable about The Life of Chuck is the journey this structure takes you on. At first, as the world literally crumbles away, it creates a feeling that we’re all small and insignificant. But the rest of the film does the exact opposite: it shows how every life, even those that end far too quickly, is full of depth and wonder. The metaphor isn’t exactly subtle — this is a Mike Flanagan film, after all. And in some ways, The Life of Chuck indulges many of his worst tendencies, not only the lack of subtlety but also a penchant for lengthy monologues and schmaltz. Those elements can occasionally undermine his horror work, but they happen to suit The Life of Chuck perfectly.

Flanagan has always been a storyteller who uses horror as a way of exploring drama in a more heightened state. Here, he simply does away with the horror. The Life of Chuck doesn’t get away from his well-worn habits; rather, it’s an ideal vehicle for them. It’s also a fitting adaptation for another reason: in its very last moments, it turns out to be a haunting ghost story after all.

This review is based on a screening at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The Life of Chuck currently doesn’t have a theatrical premiere date.

Read More 

Image: Mubi

Director Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance goes full David Cronenberg body horror with a gruesome parable about the violence of youth-obsessed beauty standards. As much as studios love hyping up their latest scary movies as being so terrifying that they traumatize audiences, it is rare for features to live up to that kind of buzz. But The Substance writer / director Coralie Fargeat’s new body horror is infinitely more disturbing (a feature, not a bug) than any of its early trailers have let on.
Films about the agony of living up to female beauty standards aren’t new, but The Substance weaves them into an incisive feminist parable that feels jacked directly into the moment that has given us on-demand Ozempic and Brat. And what the film lacks in subtlety, it makes up for with an inspired — if stomach-turning — story that’s meant to get all the way under your skin no matter how secure in your body you might feel.
After years of hosting her popular aerobics TV show, fitness icon Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) has almost everything she’s ever dreamed of. She’s wealthy, famous, and her face is plastered all over Los Angeles, where her name has become synonymous with the overt sexiness of her long-running series. On the day Elisabeth turns 50, though, her piggish boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid) informs her that her time with the studio is coming to an end. He insists that Elisabeth’s dismissal is just a consequence of viewers’ changing tastes in programming, but she knows that it’s her age.

Elisabeth understands how, especially in show business, women can become personae non grata the moment men in power decide they’re no longer physically desirable. And the reality that she’s being sunsetted alarms Elisabeth so much that she barely thinks twice when presented with the opportunity to try a mysterious drug that promises to transform her into a “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of herself. The Substance works, and Elisabeth gives a twisted kind of birth to Sue (Margaret Qualley) — a gorgeous 20-something whose looks send men into cartoonish fits. But as happy as Elisabeth initially is with her secret double life, she soon finds herself at odds with Sue as “they” struggle to follow the strict rules about how The Substance is supposed to be used.
It doesn’t take many licks to get through The Substance’s glossy candy coating down to its powerful messages about the ways society pushes women to aspire and conform to unrealistic ideas of femininity. The Substance repeatedly explains that Elisabeth and Sue are the same person and must alternate between physical forms for a week at a time in order to remain stable. The conceit itself is an effective metaphor for the way that our youth-obsessed culture drives people to drastically alter themselves with drugs, cosmetic surgeries, and extreme lifestyle changes that all come with some degree of risk.
It’s excruciating to watch The Substance’s visceral shots of skin being ripped apart and bodily fluids being drained through twisted tubing. But as Sue steps out into the world, Fargeat presents it as an intoxicating wonderland of sex and power intoxicating enough to make the pain of her transformation worth it. Though The Substance features a handful of other characters, Moore and Qualley command the film with dueling performances. Together, they paint a complex picture of a woman at war with herself for control of a life that they’re both responsible for but have drastically different experiences of.

Moore brings a desperate weariness to Elisabeth, whose status as a spandex-wearing fitness icon reads as a nod to the actor’s rise to fame in the early ’80s. And there’s a sociopathic quality to the way Qualley inhabits Sue as a woman merely playing at being a guileless “girl next door” type to befuddle boorish men. As the drug continues to open more and more doors for Sue that were once closed to Elisabeth, The Substance begins to echo many of the beats that shaped All About Eve while channeling a dark eroticism evocative of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls. But as Elisabeth and Sue’s fight for more control over their life becomes more pointed, the movie drives head-on into territory reminiscent of David Cronenberg’s Crash and Crimes of the Future, which Fargeat makes her own with buckets of artfully splattered viscera.
While there’s a pronounced comedy streak running through it, The Substance is not at all a movie for the squeamish. Many of its most stunning scenes are soaked in blood spurting from unnatural orifices and bodies becoming warped in nightmarish ways. They’re spectacularly nauseating. Fargeat wants you to feel the fantasy and witness the suffering that comes with trying to maintain it. The Substance might very well leave you feeling sick and a little woozy, but that’s how you know it’s working.
The Substance also stars Hugo Diego Garcia, Philip Schurer, Joseph Balderrama, Tom Morton, and Robin Greer. The film hits theaters on September 20th.

Image: Mubi

Director Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance goes full David Cronenberg body horror with a gruesome parable about the violence of youth-obsessed beauty standards.

As much as studios love hyping up their latest scary movies as being so terrifying that they traumatize audiences, it is rare for features to live up to that kind of buzz. But The Substance writer / director Coralie Fargeat’s new body horror is infinitely more disturbing (a feature, not a bug) than any of its early trailers have let on.

Films about the agony of living up to female beauty standards aren’t new, but The Substance weaves them into an incisive feminist parable that feels jacked directly into the moment that has given us on-demand Ozempic and Brat. And what the film lacks in subtlety, it makes up for with an inspired — if stomach-turning — story that’s meant to get all the way under your skin no matter how secure in your body you might feel.

After years of hosting her popular aerobics TV show, fitness icon Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) has almost everything she’s ever dreamed of. She’s wealthy, famous, and her face is plastered all over Los Angeles, where her name has become synonymous with the overt sexiness of her long-running series. On the day Elisabeth turns 50, though, her piggish boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid) informs her that her time with the studio is coming to an end. He insists that Elisabeth’s dismissal is just a consequence of viewers’ changing tastes in programming, but she knows that it’s her age.

Elisabeth understands how, especially in show business, women can become personae non grata the moment men in power decide they’re no longer physically desirable. And the reality that she’s being sunsetted alarms Elisabeth so much that she barely thinks twice when presented with the opportunity to try a mysterious drug that promises to transform her into a “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of herself. The Substance works, and Elisabeth gives a twisted kind of birth to Sue (Margaret Qualley) — a gorgeous 20-something whose looks send men into cartoonish fits. But as happy as Elisabeth initially is with her secret double life, she soon finds herself at odds with Sue as “they” struggle to follow the strict rules about how The Substance is supposed to be used.

It doesn’t take many licks to get through The Substance’s glossy candy coating down to its powerful messages about the ways society pushes women to aspire and conform to unrealistic ideas of femininity. The Substance repeatedly explains that Elisabeth and Sue are the same person and must alternate between physical forms for a week at a time in order to remain stable. The conceit itself is an effective metaphor for the way that our youth-obsessed culture drives people to drastically alter themselves with drugs, cosmetic surgeries, and extreme lifestyle changes that all come with some degree of risk.

It’s excruciating to watch The Substance’s visceral shots of skin being ripped apart and bodily fluids being drained through twisted tubing. But as Sue steps out into the world, Fargeat presents it as an intoxicating wonderland of sex and power intoxicating enough to make the pain of her transformation worth it. Though The Substance features a handful of other characters, Moore and Qualley command the film with dueling performances. Together, they paint a complex picture of a woman at war with herself for control of a life that they’re both responsible for but have drastically different experiences of.

Moore brings a desperate weariness to Elisabeth, whose status as a spandex-wearing fitness icon reads as a nod to the actor’s rise to fame in the early ’80s. And there’s a sociopathic quality to the way Qualley inhabits Sue as a woman merely playing at being a guileless “girl next door” type to befuddle boorish men. As the drug continues to open more and more doors for Sue that were once closed to Elisabeth, The Substance begins to echo many of the beats that shaped All About Eve while channeling a dark eroticism evocative of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls. But as Elisabeth and Sue’s fight for more control over their life becomes more pointed, the movie drives head-on into territory reminiscent of David Cronenberg’s Crash and Crimes of the Future, which Fargeat makes her own with buckets of artfully splattered viscera.

While there’s a pronounced comedy streak running through it, The Substance is not at all a movie for the squeamish. Many of its most stunning scenes are soaked in blood spurting from unnatural orifices and bodies becoming warped in nightmarish ways. They’re spectacularly nauseating. Fargeat wants you to feel the fantasy and witness the suffering that comes with trying to maintain it. The Substance might very well leave you feeling sick and a little woozy, but that’s how you know it’s working.

The Substance also stars Hugo Diego Garcia, Philip Schurer, Joseph Balderrama, Tom Morton, and Robin Greer. The film hits theaters on September 20th.

Read More 

The Iodyne Pro Mini. | Photo: Iodyne

Do you know what’s on your portable drives? Or where you saw them last? Are they ready to store and share massive gobs of video? Are they blazing fast?
The Iodyne Pro Mini is designed to be the (pricey) answer to all of that.

It’s the first external SSD with a pair of Frore AirJet Mini Slim inside, a solid-state cooling chip that, the company says, helps it transfer data at a sustained three gigabytes per second with a drive no bigger than an iPhone.
It’s the first I’ve seen with a built-in e-paper display that can automatically keep track of remaining storage and the last time it was used — plus your project name, lost-and-found phone numbers or emails, QR codes, or anything else you type in.

Image: Iodyne
Iodyne’s Digital Label sounds incredibly useful.

It’s the first drive I’ve heard of with optional Find My location tracking, and not just for iPhones — Iodyne says it’s working with Chipolo to make it the first trackable SSD on Google’s new Find My Device network, too. Unlike an AirTag, it doesn’t have UWB precision finding, but it also doesn’t need you to swap a coin battery after a year; the tracker has a rechargeable battery that should automatically charge whenever you plug the drive in.
Once you find it with your phone, Iodyne says it’ll be the first portable storage drive you can unlock with your phone’s passkeys, too, no internet connection required, and with built-in NFC so you can tap-to-unlock just like tapping to pay at retail.

Image: Iodyne

Your credentials are stored in a dedicated Secure Enclave chip like with a modern phone, too, the company says — and the drive has always-on XTS-AES-256 encryption, plus RAID 6 redundancy to potentially save your data even if part of the storage fails.
And if you pay extra, Iodyne says you can remotely manage a fleet of these drives from the web or a phone whenever they’re plugged in. You could keep track of which devices are assigned to which projects, one-click provision them for new ones, get alerts if transfers are interrupted, and even remotely revoke credentials or wipe a drive when it’s next connected.

Image: Iodyne
Tap for larger image.

The 131mm x 69mm x 13mm drive (thicker than an iPhone but roughly the same size by volume) will come in 4TB and 8TB capacities; you’ll need Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4 for its transfer rates, though it also supports USB 3.2 and below as well.
The company claims this is all unheard of, and I’m inclined to agree. Even a 3GB per second sustained read and write speed sounds substantial — while many premium SSDs can burst at up to 7GB per second, even 12GB per second, Tom’s Hardware has found many popular pocketable external SSDs only offer sustained transfer speeds of 1.5GB/s or less. Most drives throttle quickly.
Waiting for a catch? Well, those of us who don’t work for video production companies may not be able to justify the price.

Image: Iodyne
An Iodyne Pro Mini atop (and next to) a pair of the company’s $5,000-and-up Pro Data drives.

Iodyne says it built this drive to serve the film, TV, and visual effects industry, where it says its previous $5,000-and-up laptop-sized drives are already being used to shuttle some footage for productions like Amazon’s The Rings of Power, Disney’s The Acolyte, and the Brad Pitt F1 film, as well as serving as the editing station for an entire indie film that premiered at Cannes. Some of its features are explicitly designed with those clients in mind, like a little red LED sidelight so you can more easily read the e-paper label on set.
With the Iodyne Pro Mini, it’s aiming for both the 4TB and 8TB models to cost under $3,000. That’s still a bucket of money.
Also, while Iodyne’s founders have a history in the storage industry — one of them cocreated the ZFS file system, among other things — I should point out that journalists only got the briefest glimpse at a DVT prototype. I haven’t actually touched one yet, and the company suggests I may not get to until early next year.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge
Iodyne copresident Mike Shapiro briefly flashes a prototype to show it’s the size of an iPhone.

To help justify the price, Iodyne copresident Mike Shapiro explains the Pro Mini had to be designed more or less from the ground up to do what the company wanted.
While the company does use an enterprise-grade Microchip flash storage controller and Chipolo location tracker, he says the company worked to build its own custom firmware, designed the drive’s central processor and NAND storage chips, and helped create a custom Frore AirJet cooling design as well.
“It is not a wrapper around an M.2 SSD,” Shapiro repeatedly points out.

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Speaking of the AirJets, this external drive is the first to highlight a new self-cleaning feature of Frore’s piezoelectric cooling chips, where the AirJet reverses the flow of air to blow dust out of its filters. While the Iodyne drive can’t directly tell when the filter is blocked, Shapiro says it can compare the results from various sensors to tell when it’s working harder than it should and intelligently turn it on.
The Iodyne Pro Mini is technically available for preorder today, but only for 25 unnamed partners, with a “select beta program” beginning later this year. The company says final products should ship in the first quarter of 2025.

The Iodyne Pro Mini. | Photo: Iodyne

Do you know what’s on your portable drives? Or where you saw them last? Are they ready to store and share massive gobs of video? Are they blazing fast?

The Iodyne Pro Mini is designed to be the (pricey) answer to all of that.

It’s the first external SSD with a pair of Frore AirJet Mini Slim inside, a solid-state cooling chip that, the company says, helps it transfer data at a sustained three gigabytes per second with a drive no bigger than an iPhone.

It’s the first I’ve seen with a built-in e-paper display that can automatically keep track of remaining storage and the last time it was used — plus your project name, lost-and-found phone numbers or emails, QR codes, or anything else you type in.

Image: Iodyne
Iodyne’s Digital Label sounds incredibly useful.

It’s the first drive I’ve heard of with optional Find My location tracking, and not just for iPhones — Iodyne says it’s working with Chipolo to make it the first trackable SSD on Google’s new Find My Device network, too. Unlike an AirTag, it doesn’t have UWB precision finding, but it also doesn’t need you to swap a coin battery after a year; the tracker has a rechargeable battery that should automatically charge whenever you plug the drive in.

Once you find it with your phone, Iodyne says it’ll be the first portable storage drive you can unlock with your phone’s passkeys, too, no internet connection required, and with built-in NFC so you can tap-to-unlock just like tapping to pay at retail.

Image: Iodyne

Your credentials are stored in a dedicated Secure Enclave chip like with a modern phone, too, the company says — and the drive has always-on XTS-AES-256 encryption, plus RAID 6 redundancy to potentially save your data even if part of the storage fails.

And if you pay extra, Iodyne says you can remotely manage a fleet of these drives from the web or a phone whenever they’re plugged in. You could keep track of which devices are assigned to which projects, one-click provision them for new ones, get alerts if transfers are interrupted, and even remotely revoke credentials or wipe a drive when it’s next connected.

Image: Iodyne
Tap for larger image.

The 131mm x 69mm x 13mm drive (thicker than an iPhone but roughly the same size by volume) will come in 4TB and 8TB capacities; you’ll need Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4 for its transfer rates, though it also supports USB 3.2 and below as well.

The company claims this is all unheard of, and I’m inclined to agree. Even a 3GB per second sustained read and write speed sounds substantial — while many premium SSDs can burst at up to 7GB per second, even 12GB per second, Tom’s Hardware has found many popular pocketable external SSDs only offer sustained transfer speeds of 1.5GB/s or less. Most drives throttle quickly.

Waiting for a catch? Well, those of us who don’t work for video production companies may not be able to justify the price.

Image: Iodyne
An Iodyne Pro Mini atop (and next to) a pair of the company’s $5,000-and-up Pro Data drives.

Iodyne says it built this drive to serve the film, TV, and visual effects industry, where it says its previous $5,000-and-up laptop-sized drives are already being used to shuttle some footage for productions like Amazon’s The Rings of Power, Disney’s The Acolyte, and the Brad Pitt F1 film, as well as serving as the editing station for an entire indie film that premiered at Cannes. Some of its features are explicitly designed with those clients in mind, like a little red LED sidelight so you can more easily read the e-paper label on set.

With the Iodyne Pro Mini, it’s aiming for both the 4TB and 8TB models to cost under $3,000. That’s still a bucket of money.

Also, while Iodyne’s founders have a history in the storage industry — one of them cocreated the ZFS file system, among other things — I should point out that journalists only got the briefest glimpse at a DVT prototype. I haven’t actually touched one yet, and the company suggests I may not get to until early next year.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge
Iodyne copresident Mike Shapiro briefly flashes a prototype to show it’s the size of an iPhone.

To help justify the price, Iodyne copresident Mike Shapiro explains the Pro Mini had to be designed more or less from the ground up to do what the company wanted.

While the company does use an enterprise-grade Microchip flash storage controller and Chipolo location tracker, he says the company worked to build its own custom firmware, designed the drive’s central processor and NAND storage chips, and helped create a custom Frore AirJet cooling design as well.

“It is not a wrapper around an M.2 SSD,” Shapiro repeatedly points out.

Speaking of the AirJets, this external drive is the first to highlight a new self-cleaning feature of Frore’s piezoelectric cooling chips, where the AirJet reverses the flow of air to blow dust out of its filters. While the Iodyne drive can’t directly tell when the filter is blocked, Shapiro says it can compare the results from various sensors to tell when it’s working harder than it should and intelligently turn it on.

The Iodyne Pro Mini is technically available for preorder today, but only for 25 unnamed partners, with a “select beta program” beginning later this year. The company says final products should ship in the first quarter of 2025.

Read More 

Tab groups will soon make it easier to revisit webpages across devices without bookmarking them. | Image: Google

Google is adding some new features to Chrome that aim to help users organize and keep track of their browser tabs across both desktop and mobile devices. The search giant announced in a new blog post that tab groups — which enable Android and desktop Chrome users to keep related pages together in custom-labeled groups — will start rolling out to Chrome for iOS starting today.
Once Chrome is updated, iPhone and iPad users can access the feature by opening the tab grid, long-pressing on a tab, and selecting “Add Tab to New Group.” Custom names and colors can then be assigned to the created tab groups to help keep them organized and easily identifiable.

GIF: Google
Here’s a quick demo showing how to access tab grouping on Chrome for iOS.

Another feature that’s rolling out across Android and desktop Chrome apps is the ability to sync those saved tab groups across multiple devices. This should help users keep track of any in-progress activity without losing any work or specific tabs. If Chrome users start making vacation plans on a phone, for example, they can then group those open tabs together and automatically sync them to their desktop account if they want to move to a larger screen. Google says this update is coming to Chrome on iOS “soon.”
Chrome is also testing a feature that proactively suggests websites that were opened on other devices, which should reduce the need to bookmark them. The experimental feature will direct users to revisit specific webpages when they open a new Chrome tab on Android, iOS, and desktop. Google says it will begin testing “in a couple of weeks” but didn’t provide an ETA for general availability.

Tab groups will soon make it easier to revisit webpages across devices without bookmarking them. | Image: Google

Google is adding some new features to Chrome that aim to help users organize and keep track of their browser tabs across both desktop and mobile devices. The search giant announced in a new blog post that tab groups — which enable Android and desktop Chrome users to keep related pages together in custom-labeled groups — will start rolling out to Chrome for iOS starting today.

Once Chrome is updated, iPhone and iPad users can access the feature by opening the tab grid, long-pressing on a tab, and selecting “Add Tab to New Group.” Custom names and colors can then be assigned to the created tab groups to help keep them organized and easily identifiable.

GIF: Google
Here’s a quick demo showing how to access tab grouping on Chrome for iOS.

Another feature that’s rolling out across Android and desktop Chrome apps is the ability to sync those saved tab groups across multiple devices. This should help users keep track of any in-progress activity without losing any work or specific tabs. If Chrome users start making vacation plans on a phone, for example, they can then group those open tabs together and automatically sync them to their desktop account if they want to move to a larger screen. Google says this update is coming to Chrome on iOS “soon.”

Chrome is also testing a feature that proactively suggests websites that were opened on other devices, which should reduce the need to bookmark them. The experimental feature will direct users to revisit specific webpages when they open a new Chrome tab on Android, iOS, and desktop. Google says it will begin testing “in a couple of weeks” but didn’t provide an ETA for general availability.

Read More 

Image: Insomniac Games

Sony finally confirmed the PS5 Pro this morning, and in addition to enhanced features like Wi-Fi 7 and 8K gaming, PlayStation execs shared new info on how recent and older games will perform on the system and all the current games that can take advantage of the Pro’s power.
One feature the PS5 Pro will include is called Game Boost. The official PlayStation blog says PS5 Pro Game Boost “may stabilize or improve the performance of supported PS4 and PS5 games.” It also said that the Pro’s “enhanced image quality” can improve the resolution for certain PS4 games.
Sony shared a short, non-comprehensive list of games that will receive free patches to take advantage of the Pro’s graphical and performance features. The games that will be noted with a “PS5 Pro Enhanced” label include:

Alan Wake 2
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Demon’s Souls
Dragon’s Dogma II
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Gran Turismo 7
Hogwarts Legacy
Horizon Forbidden West
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
The Crew Motorfest
The First Descendant
The Last of Us Part II Remastered

We don’t know how games not optimized for the Pro will look on the system. In an interview with CNET, Sony said that around 40 to 50 games will receive the PS5 Pro update patch when the system launches in November.

Image: Insomniac Games

Sony finally confirmed the PS5 Pro this morning, and in addition to enhanced features like Wi-Fi 7 and 8K gaming, PlayStation execs shared new info on how recent and older games will perform on the system and all the current games that can take advantage of the Pro’s power.

One feature the PS5 Pro will include is called Game Boost. The official PlayStation blog says PS5 Pro Game Boost “may stabilize or improve the performance of supported PS4 and PS5 games.” It also said that the Pro’s “enhanced image quality” can improve the resolution for certain PS4 games.

Sony shared a short, non-comprehensive list of games that will receive free patches to take advantage of the Pro’s graphical and performance features. The games that will be noted with a “PS5 Pro Enhanced” label include:

Alan Wake 2
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Demon’s Souls
Dragon’s Dogma II
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Gran Turismo 7
Hogwarts Legacy
Horizon Forbidden West
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
The Crew Motorfest
The First Descendant
The Last of Us Part II Remastered

We don’t know how games not optimized for the Pro will look on the system. In an interview with CNET, Sony said that around 40 to 50 games will receive the PS5 Pro update patch when the system launches in November.

Read More