Last year, during my AI Year Takeover, I developed a habit of talking to ChatGPT in the car. (Shameless plug: It’s all in my book, I AM NOT A ROBOT, out May 12. It’s coming up soon! Pre-order now! All the book plugs end soon-ish, and then I return to my regularly scheduled dignity.)

On longer drives to New York City or during solo road trips for work, I’d open ChatGPT on my iPhone and talk to it via Bluetooth. I’d brainstorm story or book chapter ideas, ask questions to help me prepare for meetings or interviews and more. Basically, ChatGPT was KITT and I was David Hasselhoff, minus the chest hair.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one. In early April, OpenAI released ChatGPT for Apple CarPlay. Now I just tap the ChatGPT icon on my CarPlay screen and there it is: the glowing blue orb, riding shotgun. (You do need iOS 26.4.) And this week, Google announced Gemini is rolling out to Google built-in vehicles.

This is more than just another “AI is coming to your car” headline.

For years, CarPlay and Android Auto have mostly been projection layers: maps, music, messages, podcasts, calls. Useful, but still basically your phone projected. Now the car is becoming a deeper AI surface.

That matters because vehicles are one of the places where AI makes a ton of sense. You can’t type. You shouldn’t be looking at screens. But you can talk. And on a long drive, you may actually have the one thing AI apps are always fighting for: your attention.

The question is who gets to sit in that passenger seat. Apple with Siri? Google with Gemini? Amazon with Alexa? OpenAI with ChatGPT? Your automaker? GM has chosen Gemini. Tesla has obviously chosen Grok. Because once the assistant can do more than “play Taylor Swift,” the car becomes a battleground for something much bigger: the conversation.

Last summer, when I interviewed Ford CEO Jim Farley on my friend Nilay Patel’s Decoder podcast, I asked him about the move here. He referenced what Chinese EV maker Nio has been doing and hinted that Ford would like to do the same. 

“If you look at China being ahead of the West in terms of integrating AI as a companion in your vehicle, early indications are that a well-done companion-like functionality from the OEM can add a lot of value to people’s lives,” he said. “That’s the direction we’re going.” 

That deeper integration with the car, the software and eventually autonomous driving makes a lot of sense. AI in our cars isn’t some far-off sci-fi fantasy. It’s quickly approaching the next exit. We’re all David Hasselhoff soon.

Big news at New Things HQ this week: David, our head of video, bought new microphones and a bunch of other items he described as “essential” without asking me for my debit card. He used his new Mercury virtual card, which works right through the Mercury app and Apple Pay.

I also paid our GFX designer through Mercury, and it was so simple it was almost anticlimactic. Transferred money in, found the pay tool and done. 

No digging through a maze of menus. No “allow 5-7 business days.” Just: paid.

One account, multiple cards, contractors getting paid on time…and the time back to keep writing this newsletter and making videos.

Mercury is our launch sponsor at New Things, and its banking works the way modern software should: fast, clean, and, dare I say, like a new thing. Check them out here.

It’s been amazing watching how many of you still love the old-school web and RSS feeds. Truly warms my Really Simple Syndicated heart. Anyway, you asked and I answered: Here is New Things’ RSS feed. Pop it into your reader of choice and enjoy.  I even resurrected my NewsBlur account to test it out. Long live Google Reader.

Over the past few weeks, a new iOS 24.6 trick has gone viral. In the Shortcuts app, you can now customize the sound your phone makes when you plug in to charge. Unlike the phone alarm that comes with a menu of pre-selected sounds, this lets you pick any audio file. The options are infinite and we are not here to stop you.

The internet has been hard at work making this sound update: dramatic gasps, movie lines, sound effects of all kinds. (This TikTok account has lots of funny ideas.) I was inspired to set the Mac startup sound as my charge sound. Then I tried to do it myself and spent a while wandering through Shortcuts like I’d been dropped into an Apple escape room. So, let’s do this together.

First: Download whatever sound you fancy to your iPhone’s Files app. (I downloaded the Mac startup sound from here on my Mac and the Windows XP startup sound here. Then I AirDropped them to my Phone.) 

Then:

1. Open the Shortcuts app. It’s pre-installed on your iPhone.

2. Tap Automation, then hit + in the top right.

3. Scroll down to Charger.

4. Select Connected and Run Immediately, then tap Next.

Name? Matt Rogers*

What’s your old thing? Logitech Harmony Remote

What year is it from? 2015 (discontinued in 2021) 

Why do you love your old thing?  The Harmony Remote was “the gold standard of the universal remote,” or at least that’s what one smart former WSJ columnist once said. It was a product built to solve a real and present problem for regular people, at scale. Instead of a graveyard of plastic expanding across your coffee table, the Harmony did the job of three or four remotes in one. I dug the Harmony’s Bluetooth capabilities that enable the actual theater equipment to be stored out of sight (vs. other remotes that use infrared and can’t speak through walls). I was devastated when it was discontinued, but that hasn’t stopped me from still using it. I bought this last replacement in August 2025 from someone in Tennessee on eBay.

* Matt Rogers is the founder and CEO of Mill, a food-waste recycling company. He also was a co-founder of Nest.

Want your old thing featured here? Submit a photo and entry to humans@thenewthings.com. Include your answers to all of the above, plus the emotional damage this gadget may have caused. 

This newsletter was written and curated by Joanna Stern and Adele Lowitz. The amazing New Things branding was designed by Brainstorm. Have a great weekend! 🕶️

My best advice after spending a few days with the Unitree G1 robot from China: Do not let it anywhere near your feet. The roughly 77-pound humanoid stepped on my toe while I was testing its balance. 

But the fear of a little broken phalange isn’t the biggest concern when it comes to Chinese robots in America. (My toe is fine, by the way. It was the color of an eggplant for a while; now it’s just sore.) The bigger worries around these foreign-made machines echo those surrounding other Chinese electronics, like smartphones or EVs: national security, data privacy and cybersecurity. Just see the FBI’s website.

So a few months ago, when videos of G1 humanoids’ antics in the U.S. first started overrunning my X algorithm, I decided to find out how these robots were getting here—and whether they were safe. You should watch our brand-new feature video, where the robot visits my home and I visit Robostore, the Long Island-based company importing these robots and selling them to major American tech companies, academic institutions and more. Here are some of the top things I found out.

This newsletter was curated and written by Joanna Stern and Adele Lowitz. The amazing New Things branding was designed by Brainstorm. Have a great rest of the week and see you Friday, assuming the robots don’t step on any of our toes. 🦶🏻

Happy Friday! What a week—for New Things AND for new things in tech. Apple announced that Tim Cook will step down as CEO in September and hand over the reins to John Ternus.

OpenAI rolled out new GPT 5.5 and Image 2.0 models. Meta said it would lay off 10% of its workforce. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I found myself thinking about why my ducking iPhone keyboard won’t just type what I want it to. That’s my Thing of the Week.

Plus, how to make fake gadget patent images with OpenAI’s new image model and our first Old Thing submission! Casey Neistat’s 2003 Sony CLIÉ PEG-UX50.

Lots of my peers have written sharp pieces about Tim Cook’s departure as CEO and John Ternus’s ascension to the Apple throne. Here’s my main question: John Ternus, can you turn-us the iPhone autocorrect around?

If I had written that with my iPhone keyboard, it would be more like: John Tennis, can you turndown this applet autocorrect a round?

Over the last few months, I’ve noticed more autocorrect mishaps on my iPhone 17 Pro. And I’m not alone. (I’ve also had some nasty battery drain after recent iOS 26 updates, but that’s another story for another time.) Plenty of people have complained to me about autocorrect problems. And I see the folks I’m texting with quickly correcting messages because their iPhone mangled the message.

To be fair, Apple addressed part of the problem in iOS 26.4. I’ll get to that below. But to suggest iPhone autocorrect is now fixed—or works as well as it once did—is like suggesting Siri is a genius.

In fact, if you want to talk about Apple being behind in AI, start here—not with its need for LLMs or futuristic AI gadgets. But there’s hope in a few different forms already at hand. Some things you can do now, some things are on the horizon.  

With iOS 26.4 released a few weeks ago, Apple improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly. Basically, when you typed fast and tapped a key, it looked like the phone registered it but sometimes the character never actually made it into the word. That led to some truly unhinged autocorrect.

So first, do the update dance. Go to Settings > General > Software Update. It should help. Plenty of people on social media have pointed out improvements. But even after the update, I was still having issues. The thing that helped the most? Resetting my keyboard dictionary.

Your iPhone learns from how you type. But sometimes it learns the wrong lessons: bad spellings, weird shortcuts, names, typos, whatever chaos you’ve been feeding it. To wipe the slate clean, go to: Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Keyboard Dictionary.

It looks scary to do this, but it’s OK. It won’t reset your entire phone. It just clears the custom keyboard memory it has built up over time. It’s made a big difference for me over the last few weeks. You can also always add words you use frequently to your iPhone’s dictionary. (Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement.)

If you’ve used third-party keyboards like Whispr Flow or Grammarly, you know Apple is behind in making its keyboard smarter with AI.

Whispr Flow’s keyboard is all about voice input, and its speech-to-text model is far better than Apple’s. I’ve also been using Grammarly’s iOS keyboard, which brings more AI writing help directly into the keyboard.

The problem is I still find most third-party iOS keyboards annoying. Switching between keyboards is clunky, and there can be privacy tradeoffs since your text often has to be processed by that third party.

Generate Your Own AI Fake Patents

I have a weird obsession with looking at tech patents. The diagrams! The labels! I’ve dreamed of filing my own, despite having approximately zero engineering ability.

That fantasy got a lot more realistic this week when OpenAI launched ChatGPT Images 2.0, powered by gpt-image-2. The biggest upgrade: It’s much better at rendering text. Earlier image models could make nice pictures but then spell “Main Street” like “Mani Streat.” OpenAI is pitching this version as much more useful for posters, layouts, brochures, comics and other text-heavy visuals.

Will this create even more (and more convincing) AI slop? Absolutely. But it’s also fun—and, once in a while, actually useful. I love making fake patent filings for inventions I desperately want to exist. Like SmartPunch, a device that literally punches you in your big dumb face when you doomscroll or use AI for stupid stuff. Yes, including making fake patent images. Here’s the prompt to start with:

If you make a great fake patent, email it to me here or share on social. I’m @joannastern everywhere.

Name? Casey Neistat

What’s your old thing? Sony CLIÉ PEG-UX50

What year is it from? 2003 

Why do you love your old thing?  This product came from a time when technological capability grossly outpaced the cultural understanding of where technology fit in. It runs Palm OS, because Palm had utility—contacts and calendar, not much beyond that. So Sony took that and thought: Let’s change the form factor, make it feel like a little computer, put a full keyboard on it, add all these other antennas. This one had Wi-Fi in 2003. It has a rotating camera so you can pivot the lens to your face and take a selfie.

Finding one that works today is nearly impossible. I bought this and made it work. I had to get in there, do some soldering on the PCBs, get a new third-party battery and remove some corrosion. Finding an actual Sony OEM telescoping stylus was also incredibly challenging. But it works as it did in 2003.

Want your old thing featured here? Submit a photo and entry to humans@thenewthings.com. Include your answers to all of the above, plus the emotional damage this gadget may have caused. 

This newsletter was written and curated by Joanna Stern and Adele Lowitz. The amazing New Things branding was designed by Brainstorm. Have a great weekend! 🕶️

Hello! Is this thing on? 🎤 Welcome to the launch of New Things—a newsletter, a YouTube channel, a whole experiment. Wow! We’re really doing it.

For this first newsletter, I want to tell you about this new thing, and why I’m doing it. After this one, it's tech news, reviews and whatever else is on my mind. You’ll get this email twice a week. Wednesdays will bring bigger tech stories plus new videos.

Fridays will be breezier—shorter, lighter, weirder. If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll get both and a whole bunch of other perks. So you’ll want to upgrade to a paid subscription here. Free subscribers get the Friday newsletter and a whole bunch of FOMO. Also below: why Chrome vertical tabs are great, and a running robot. Let’s do this!

When I was cleaning out my attic a few weeks ago to make room for my new home video studio, I found a box.

Inside: an iPod with a click wheel. A Zune HD with a scratched screen. An old Garmin that I can remember rerouting me directly to a Chili's parking lot. The BlackBerrys and Palm Pilots are in another box, resting together like tiny monuments honoring the past we used to carry around.

Of course, these are all old things now. But once upon a time, when I started covering technology, they were new things.

In today’s launch video on YouTube, I explain why I left The Wall Street Journal to build this. Some of it is media stuff—feeling trapped inside a legacy publication and wanting the freedom to make journalism outside those walls, on channels that are actually mine. But most of it comes down to this: We are entering a new era of technology that will soon make today’s “new things” feel like old things. And it’s happening faster than a piece of bacon disappears near my dog. 

If you’ve read my work at WSJ—or before that at ABC News or The Verge—you know I love consumer tech. I love reviewing it, talking to the people making it and helping people understand it. Mostly, I love having fun with it. That’s what we’re doing here.

So let me answer a few questions.

At the simplest level: what I’ve always done. Writing and making videos about the devices, apps and services changing how we live. Yes, there will be phones. Yes, Apple stuff. Yes, Google and Android stuff. Yes, tips and tricks. Yes, probably a weird robot. Probably many weird robots.

But while writing my new book, I AM NOT A ROBOT—where I used AI in as many parts of my life as possible for a year—I realized Is this a good product? isn’t the main question to ask anymore. The bigger question is: Who is this tech for? Wall Street? Greedy CEOs? AI agents? Actual humans? I want it to be for humans. And I want to cover it that way too: as a human living with it, using it, testing it and trying to make sense of what it’s doing to our lives.

That’s the thread running through everything here—every review, every story, every dumb joke. And if I do this right, New Things won’t be just a publication. It’ll be a group of people asking that question together—and figuring out what kind of future we actually want.

Hi! I’m a human. I wrote this. Twenty years of journalism ethics don't disappear because I started an independent media company and a YouTube channel, and they definitely don't disappear because there are 700 chatbots on my laptop. Every word you read here—every review, every story, every bad joke—is written by me or by a human on my team. (Say hi, Amaya, David, Adele and Rich. 👋🏻) 

Don’t get me wrong, we’re using AI all day over here. In fact, we hope to introduce you to our intern agent soon. But the thinking, the reporting, the voice, the calls about what's true and what's worth your time—that's all human. Speaking of humans and the human hand, our whole brand font was hand drawn by Jason Snyder. Briana Feola and Zach Ferdman (also humans) put all the stunning designs together. Seriously, how good do things look around here?

In today’s launch video, I went to go visit Casey Neistat, world famous YouTuber and one of a few who inspired me to take this career step. When I asked him what was most important for me to do as I launch my own YouTube channel, he said: “Being human is not enough. You have to only be you. There's eight billion other humans out there. What do you have to offer me? And only you have that.”

What I offer is a love of technology, but also the curiosity and skepticism this moment demands. Also: fun. I offer fun.

Some things do change here, though. New Things makes money two ways: newsletter subscriptions and sponsorships. On YouTube and other social channels, you'll start hearing ad reads from me. You'll always know when something is sponsored. It will be clearly labeled and delivered through a ridiculous gold microphone that we have termed the MoneyMic. Sponsorships have zero influence on our editorial coverage. Our full standards live at TheNewThings.com/standards. Please go read them and ask me if you have questions about them.

Subscribing is what helps us build this independent journalism venture. It funds high-quality, deeply reported videos and stories. No ring light here.

I want New Things to be more than a publication. I want it to feel like a club—a group of humans who care about where tech is going and want to figure it out together. Speaking of: Every Friday, we're going to feature a piece of old tech—your old tech. Reply to this newsletter with a photo from something out of your own attic box and the story behind it. Your click wheels. Your flip phones. Your old DVI cable. 

Tech journalism. For humans. Who like fun. That's what I quit my job to do. Thanks for being here at the start of it.

Funny story from week one of New Things: I went online to open a business bank account, only to discover I that first had to drive to a local branch (did that), wait around to talk to a human (did that too), and then wait even longer for an ATM card to arrive in the mail before I could make a single payment (also did that). Hilarious stuff.

Then people started telling me about Mercury, now the exclusive launch sponsor of New Things. And it turns out banking does not have to be an old thing. It can be a new thing.

With Mercury, I applied for an account from my bed in about 10 minutes and got virtual cards I could use immediately. No sitting around for the mail truck. And I got bill pay that lets me pay contractors without spelunking through 14 confusing portal menus. 

I’m so excited to be partnering with Mercury to launch New Things and power this part of my business. You’ll be hearing more about Mercury here and in some of our videos soon.

Google Chrome Vertical Tabs

Google recently launched vertical tabs in Chrome, which is exactly what it sounds like: a feature that moves your tabs from a tiny row across the top of the browser to a scrollable list on the left side.

To turn it on, type chrome://flags/ in your address bar, find vertical tabs and enable it. Then restart your browser and right-click in Chrome’s tab bar and select “Show Tabs Vertically.” Google will be turning this on for everybody soon, so you won’t have to take the initial step. 

This turned my whole world upside down on its side. In a good way! I now see life as divided into two tabs, one labeled BVT (Before Vertical Tabs) and the other AVT (After). The change is clarifying: You can actually read the name of every tab. No more website titles getting chopped into two sad syllables every time you open another. Want 150 tabs open? The future is here. 

You can also collapse the sidebar down to just icons to reclaim screen space. Pins, groups and split view all still work the same as they do in the regular top-tab setup.  

This is Honor’s bipedal humanoid dominating a half marathon in Beijing, crushing 13 miles in 50 minutes and leaving every human and rival robot in the dust. Sources close to the robot say it wasn’t chasing victory. It was racing to subscribe to New Things and preorder my new book.

GIF from China Global Television Network  

This newsletter was written and curated by Joanna Stern and Adele Lowitz. The amazing New Things branding was designed by Brainstorm. See you Friday.