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iPhone XS vs. sidewalk: Did it survive our drop test?
The Walking Dead developer Telltale hit with devastating layoffs as part of a 'majority studio closure'
Amazon wants Alexa everywhere

iPhone XS vs. sidewalk: Did it survive our drop test?

Posted: 22 Sep 2018 04:00 AM PDT

I've done my fair share of drop tests in my time at CNET, and I've never come out of one without a broken phone. Until now. The iPhone XS didn't crack.

I took Apple's new iPhone XS through my typical four-drop tests, the same one that cracked last year's iPhone X on the first fall. But while the new iPhone XS looks a lot like last year's X, with a stainless steel frame and glass on either side, this time it may just be that glass that sets the iPhone XS apart -- and above.

At last week's launch, Phil Schiller, Apple's marketing chief, said the iPhone XS is "covered on the front and the back with a new formulation of glass that is the most durable glass ever in a smartphone."

This isn't the first time we've heard this from Apple. In fact, Apple also said that last year's 2017 iPhone lineup had "the most durable glass ever built into a smartphone," and you know what happened to our iPhone X.

I subjected a brand-new gold iPhone XS to a series of drops on the cement sidewalk outside of CNET's San Francisco headquarters, the place where many of our phones have met their doom.

To be clear, these tests aren't scientific, but they are real-world demonstrations of what could happen when your phone takes a tumble. The results tend to vary from drop to drop. And yes, I still plan to see just how much abuse this iPhone XS can take before it finally cracks.

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Drop 1: Pocket height (3 feet), screen side down

I started off with a drop from pocket height, or about 3 feet (90 cm). This is a natural height from which people tend to drop their phones. This is also the same impact that cracked last year's iPhone X.

I wanted to test the most important part of the phone first, so I dropped it screen-side down. The top edge of the screen broke the fall, then the XS bounced on the bottom edge and did a little flip in the air before landing again, this time completely face down.

impact1 — First test from hip height (screen side down).
Celso Bulgatti/CNET

Our iPhone XS looked intact upon first inspection, save for a few scuffs on the metal frame. But upon closer inspection, I noticed that most of the "damage" was cement debris that just rubbed right off. The glass on the edge of the screen near the top left-hand corner had a tiny dent, but it was barely noticeable, and there were no cracks on either side.

Considering last year's iPhone X had already cracked at this point, I would say it's already a win for our iPhone XS -- up to now. But the testing continued.

Drop 2: Pocket height (3 feet), screen side up

Next I wanted to test out the glass on the back, so I dropped the iPhone XS from the same height (3 feet), this time with the screen facing up.

impact2 — Second drop: The stainless steel frame broke the fall.
Celso Bulgatti/CNET

This time the phone changed positions in midair and landed on the top left-hand side, not on its face. After this initial impact, it bounced on the side of that stainless steel frame and then onto its back for its final landing.

Again, it was hard to pinpoint the damage. The frame looked like it had sustained a few more scrapes than before. There were tiny dents on the gold finish of the stainless steel, about the size of a grain of sand. The glass on the front and back of the phone was still intact.

With that one out of the way, I decided to go even higher.

Drop 3: Eye level (5 feet), free fall

For my next drop, I wanted to take it up to eye level, which is roughly the height at which it would fall from your hands if you're taking a picture.

I held the phone in landscape mode with the screen facing me and let it go.

impact3-1 — On the third drop from 5 feet, the iPhone XS landed on its corner.

Once again the steel frame broke the iPhone XS' fall. The first point of impact was the top-left corner of the phone, then it bounced on the bottom corner, rotated to hit the bottom edge and then slid out and landed screen side down on the edge of the sidewalk.

The tiny dents on the top left-hand corner of the frame had multiplied, but I had to inspect it closely to notice. Everything else still looked exactly the same. No major damage.

Drop 4: Eye level (5 feet), screen side down

I was running out of time to shoot our drop test, and the glass on the iPhone XS was still intact. For the last test, I decided to drop it again from 5 feet (1.5 meters), but this time starting out with the screen face down.

impact4 — Fourth and final drop from 5 feet: The phone landed first on the corner where the rear-facing camera is located.
Celso Bulgatti/CNET

Again, the phone did not land exactly how I wanted it to. Instead, it landed on the top-right corner toward the rear-facing camera, then did a couple of flips in the air before landing with the screen facing up.

This time there was a lot of cement debris on the camera, making me think it had scratched. It wiped off easily. The edge of the bump where the rear-facing camera is had a few grain-size dents on the top, but the glass on the camera didn't break. And everything else still looked pretty much the same as it did before this second 5-foot drop.

The breakdown

Based on how similar the iPhone XS looks to its predecessor, the iPhone X, I was expecting it to crack on the first drop or two. Clearly, I was wrong.

After four falls from up to 5 feet onto the concrete sidewalk, this iPhone XS came out almost intact. It has a few tiny dents and scrapes on the frame and the side of the camera, but the glass is nearly flawless.

Does that mean that the iPhone XS glass is stronger? That's a tough call to make, given the nature of our tests. But I can tell you it fared significantly better than last year's iPhone X, which ended up with cracks on both sides and tiny pieces of glass falling off the edges after only two drops from hip height.

I reached out to Apple for more information, but the company declined to give further details about the iPhone XS glass compared to that of the iPhone X. We do know that Corning has supplied glass for previous iPhones, but we don't know whether or not the iPhone XS is covered in Corning's latest Gorilla Glass 6. Corning also declined to comment for this story.

I would still recommend putting a case on your $1,000-plus iPhone XS and XS Max for some peace of mind. After all, it will cost you $279 to replace the XS screen and $329 for the XS Max (without AppleCare+ coverage). But maybe this means you can be a little more confident with them out and about.

iPhone XS review: A notch above the iPhone X

Will my iPhone XS fit in a iPhone X case? Yes it will!

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The Walking Dead developer Telltale hit with devastating layoffs as part of a 'majority studio closure'

Posted: 21 Sep 2018 03:18 PM PDT

Telltale Games, creators of episodic adventure games like The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and Batman: The Enemy Within, laid off approximately 250 employees today as part of what the company is calling a "majority studio closure." According to multiple sources The Verge spoke with, employees were let go with no severance.

"Today Telltale Games made the difficult decision to begin a majority studio closure following a year marked by insurmountable challenges," the company said in a statement. "A majority of the company's employees were dismissed earlier this morning." The company will retain a small team of 25. These remaining employees will stay on "to fulfill the company's obligations to its board and partners," according to Telltale.

The final season of Telltale's award-winning series, The Walking Dead, kicked off last month. The second episode is slated to launch next week. Staff were informed of the layoffs today and were given roughly 30 minutes to leave the building, according to one source.

Telltale had previously announced a second season of The Wolf Among Us and a game based off of Netflix's wildly popular show Stranger Things. The company has not yet commented on the status of those projects, though the outcome seems dire. On Twitter, one former lead writer wrote, "I'm so sad we won't be able to show you all Wolf."

The layoffs come a few months after revelations that Telltale was a studio mired in toxic management that included employees being subjected to constant overwork. Once an industry darling that worked on iconic brands like Game of Thrones and Minecraft, Telltale quickly spiraled. In June, co-founder and former CEO Kevin Bruner sued the company seeking recovery of financial damages. Telltale described the suit as "meritless" and "an apparent means of extracting revenge on a company already under financial strain."

In a post on his personal site today titled "Telltale closure," Bruner wrote that he is "saddened for the people who are losing their jobs at a studio they love. And I'm also saddened at the loss of a studio that green-lit crazy ideas that no one else would consider."

This isn't the first time Telltale has been subject to layoffs; last November the company laid off 90 employees, which was approximately 25 percent of its workforce. "The realities of the environment we face moving forward demand we evolve, as well, reorienting our organization with a focus on delivering fewer, better games with a smaller team," CEO Pete Hawley said at the time.

"It's been an incredibly difficult year for Telltale as we worked to set the company on a new course," Hawley said today. "Unfortunately, we ran out of time trying to get there. We released some of our best content this year and received a tremendous amount of positive feedback, but ultimately, that did not translate to sales. With a heavy heart, we watch our friends leave today to spread our brand of storytelling across the games industry."

Update September 21st 5:40PM ET: This article has been updated with Telltale's statement about the layoffs.

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Amazon wants Alexa everywhere

Posted: 22 Sep 2018 07:19 AM PDT

Thanks to Amazon, you can now talk to your microwave

Amazon won't make massive amounts of money off of its new $60 Alexa-controlled microwave. Or the Alexa controlled wall clock that only sets timers. In fact, making a profit from its growing selection of Alexa and Echo devices may be beside the point.

The company is working toward something bigger and potentially more lucrative.

Amazon wants its Alexa voice assistant to be an inescapable, invisible presence that is always with us, like a perky shadow. And it is trying to accomplish that without the inescapable gadget we already take everywhere: our phones.

On Thursday, Amazon announced 13 new Echo and Echo-adjacent gadgets at a press event in Seattle. In addition to the clock and microwave, there were new Echo smart speakers, a device that puts Alexa in cars, and a dedicated DVR to compete with 2007's hottest gadget, the TiVo.

"It's absolutely not about the revenues or the gross margins that these devices create," said Werner Goertz, an analyst at Gartner. "It is investment in the proliferation of Alexa. Proliferation creates an infrastructure."

Amazon wants to draw users into its ecosystem, says Goertz. The real money will come when Alexa users buy products on Amazon.com, consume Amazon Prime content, and use Amazon Web Services.

Data is at the heart of this plan for voice domination. The major players all have their own data-collection strengths, said Julie Ask, an analyst at Forrester.

Google has information from your email, calendar and locations, while Apple knows everything you do with your smartphone. Amazon primarily knows what you buy and watch, but Alexa is changing that.

Imagine having regular conversations with your microwave. Information about what you eat and when could be worth more to Amazon than what you paid for the appliance.

"In order for any one of these virtual assistants to work well, it has to have a lot of contextual data about a consumer," said Ask. "Embedding Alexa would give Amazon a bigger data footprint."

Amazon clearly has ambitions for Alexa outside of the home. Thursday's smallest but most intriguing new product was the Echo Auto, which brings Alexa microphones and commands into the car. Like most first generation Echo devices, the Auto has an uninspired design — a black rectangle with buttons and an unsightly wire connecting it to a power source. But it creates a new product category.

Apple's Siri and Google's Assistant are already in vehicles, but they came in through smartphones and built-in car infotainment systems. Perhaps because it's still smarting for the failure of the Fire Phone in 2014, Amazon is trying to make Alexa mobile with gadgets like Echo Auto instead.

Even if Amazon can make an end run around the phone to hear commands everywhere, it's not clear the future will boil down to a single dominant voice assistant.

"The jury is still out whether we'd want one single agent moving from screen to screen," said Justine Cassell, a professor at Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. "Would we would different branded agents in each of our devices with a different sets of skills? For Amazon, it's to their advantage to have that character move from screen to screen."

Which assistant ends up being everywhere may not have as big of an impact on our lives as how that Alexa, Siri or Janet actually works.

"It's curious to me whether they are always going to have the answer, which is not how we learn anything," said Cassell. "Or whether eventually they really are going to become useful tools for our development as people."

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