Niantic, the developer of 2016’s breakout augmented reality hit Pokémon Go, announced its follow-up: Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, set in J. K. Rowling’s wizarding world of Harry Potter. Niantic is developing the AR title in partnership with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s Portkey Games label, promising more details about the game in 2018.
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite will follow the same basic principle as Pokémon Go: That the real world hides magical secrets just beneath the surface, though details on any particulars of what the game looks and plays like are nowhere to be found currently. “By exploring real-world neighborhoods and cities across the globe,” Niantic’s press release reads, “players will go on adventures, learn and cast spells, discover mysterious artifacts, and encounter legendary beasts and iconic characters.”
Pokémon Go and Niantic’s first major AR game, Ingress, both relied on a faction-driven metagame to connect players and structure the whole experience. Niantic’s release focuses on the individual role-playing experience of going on adventures, collecting items, and learning spells, but gives no indication of any larger structure. Rowling’s obvious analog in the world of Harry Potter is the house system at Hogwart’s Academy, where a sentient hat sorts students into one of four student houses based on their personalities.
Late summer 2016 was utterly defined by Pokémon Go for a lot of people, especially if they lived in a major city, sparking a flurry of interest in AR games. Players, critics, and bystanders were all enchanted by what seemed like a wholly new type of game, using the tools of video games to get people engaging with the real world around them. Unfortunately, the magic wore off pretty quickly, and a lack of features available at launch (such as any meaningful way to interact with other players) meant that the player base rapidly atrophied except for all but the most diehard trainers. Steady updates up through the present have made for a more rewarding game than what most players experienced at launch, but a rushed release and chronic server issues meant that most players left before they would ever see it.
The success of Harry Potter: Wizards Unite will depend on whether the game can sustain a critical mass of its early adopters. The massive release of Pokémon Go no doubt taught Niantic a lot, and as a global brand Harry Potter may have stronger cache than Pokémon, so it will be interesting to see whether Niantic can not only make lightning strike twice but cultivate that spark into a steady blaze.
Merely days after the iPhone Duo hit the shelves, images of broken screens on the phone started popping up across social media. Until now, it’s been unclear what’s causing the line of defective pixels that appears vertically along the crease, as well as horizontally, on the phone’s inner display.
Apple has finally acknowledged the issue, which has shown up on iPhone Duo units owned by customers as well as demo units in stores. In a statement shared with Bloomberg, Apple says that not all iPhone Duo units are affected and that those that are tend to show the display fault early on. The company added that users who experience problems with their iPhone Duo display should contact AppleCare for a replacement.
Not long ago, Apple treated independent repair like an act of outright hostility. The Cupertino giant locked down parts with serial-number pairing, while repair tools remained firmly out of reach of anyone outside its authorized repair network. More importantly, the company waged a legal and lobbying battle against right-to-repair legislation.
I've covered enough of these fights over the years to know what a shift looks like. That's why what happened in October 2026 genuinely caught me off guard. The day the iPhone Duo went on sale, what may be the most mechanically complex iPhone to date, Apple pulled off a surprising about-face. It published teardown-style repair manuals for a handful of major components.
Apple's first foldable phone is now on shelves, in short supply, but with an unreal amount of buzz around it. After all, it's the first foldable iPhone, and there's plenty that this phone gets right. But there's also a lot that is either broken or underwhelming. What's peculiar is the dialogue around this phone, and how it has completely overshadowed every other attempt at making a phone with a similar form factor.
I've spent some time with the iPhone Duo, and I've used the Galaxy Z Fold 8 for almost three months now. In my opinion, Samsung deserves more credit. When the Galaxy Z Fold 8 arrived earlier this year, it was celebrated in some circles and ridiculed in others for supposedly copying what Apple would eventually deliver with the iPhone Duo. The dialogue was pretty odd, for multiple reasons. Samsung has been making foldable phones for years, so claiming that it copied a product Apple hadn't even launched was simply absurd.