🌄 Good Morning, dear readers. There has been much hullabaloo about the new iPhones this past week. It’s Apple’s brief time in the sun before the next spate of Android flagships take over the news cycle. But our top story today isn’t about what Apple is doing with the iPhone 14 series. Instead, it’s about something it’s not doing right. Without further ado, here’s your Wednesday dose of tech news.

Dear Tim Cook: Should we all toss out our Android phones?

You may have heard about Tim Cook mocking a guy who asked him about RCS support on iMessage. The questioner told the Apple CEO that he was unable to send his mom certain videos because Android’s native messaging apps and the iPhone’s native messaging app don’t play well together. Cook’s response: “Buy your mom an iPhone.” My colleague C. Scott Brown found several problems with that statement.

• The first and foremost issue is that Cook’s statement and Apple’s stand on RCS are eco-unfriendly.
• Apple touts its carbon-neutral status at every opportunity.
• It claims it removed the charger from iPhone retail boxes to lessen the impact on the environment.
• Even its iOS update policy — over five years of promised support — props up its eco-friendly image.
• However, “buy your mom an iPhone” spits in the face of all that big talk about being an eco-friendly company.
• The statement suggests Cook isn’t interested in working with competitors to allow people to keep their devices so that they don’t end up in landfills.
• On that note, here’s a quick explainer about refurbished phones. Buying one of these will certainly be a more planet-friendly option than changing phones every year.
• You can also learn how to recycle your phone so that you lessen your contribution to the millions of tons of e-waste generated every year.
• Back to Apple: It seems like the company doesn’t care about people keeping their phones for longer to prevent e-waste — it just cares about people keeping iPhones for longer.

A PR masterclass in what not to do

• Apart from the obvious eco-unfriendliness of Cook’s comments, his advice to the questioner, who happens to be an iPhone user, is a PR disaster.
• It was an opportunity for him to show that he’s empathetic towards the pain points of Apple’s own customers.
• He could’ve given a more considerate response: “I understand that’s frustrating for you. I will take this into consideration and see what we can come up with.”
• Android users and iPhone users should be able to communicate more effectively, and buying Mom an iPhone is not a solution.
• It would also be a pro-environment move because it would encourage people to stick with their current device and platform.
• Can Apple continue rejecting RCS? Maybe. But Google is coming right out and directly attacking Apple now.
• Even iPhone fans are tired of the incompatibility.
• Nevertheless, the whole fiasco made Apple look really bad. Let’s hope they make some consumer-friendly moves to fix this.

Roundup

🔋 You will never need to recharge these true wireless buds: Why? Because they have a solar charging case (Android Authority).

📖 Amazon announces new Kindle for 2022, blurs line between Kindle and Paperwhite: The new Kindle is slightly more expensive. If you’re looking to pick up an e-reader, though, here are your best options (Android Authority).

🥔 When we said Google needs to improve its chips, this isn’t what we had in mind (Android Authority).

💸 Sticking with Google, it looks like the company is in for some trouble. According to a report, Google is facing a $25.4 billion fine over unfair advertising practices (Reuters).

💰 Meanwhile, Nothing just posted some promising sales figures for the Phone 1 (Android Authority).

🏝️ Dynamic Island games are coming to iPhone 14 Pro (MacRumors).

😊 Tons of new emojis just landed to spruce up your messaging game (Android Authority).

🎧 Speaking of new things: Bose just launched a pair of ANC headphones out of nowhere (Android Authority).

🛸 Ukraine’s ASTROnomers Say There Are Tons of UFOs Over Kyiv (Vice).

👑 Closing out with one of the biggest happening in the world right now — the death of the Queen. It seems her final flight has become the most tracked ever (Digital Trends).

Wednesday Weirdness

What would it be like to sit on a chairless magic chair? That’s what folks at SoraNews24 found out when they tested one of these things just for the fun of it. I honestly can’t imagine strapping the weird contraption onto my legs. I guess I am the traditional office chair kinda gal.

• A Japanese correspondent at SoraNews24 purchased a chairless chair from Amazon Japan for 7,945 yen (~$55).
• It’s advertised as being handy for things like outdoor concerts, hiking, mountain climbing, and more. I wouldn’t know how useful something like this could be because those are things I almost never do.
• Anyway, the leg braces, aka the chairless chair, promise to hold up to 150kgs of weight.
• And no, the contraption didn’t get in the way of walking. The tester just felt it was added weight. Obviously, you can’t run with that thing on. Unless you’re Forest Gump.
• After a couple of failed tries, the reporter was finally able to sit on nothing but thin air (and the braces, of course).
• So if you see someone squatting like that on a mountain peak, don’t think they’re about to launch off it. They’re probably just sitting uncomfortably on some cheap leg braces.

Have a nice day,

Adamya Sharma, Editor