Apple’s big reveal: Tim Cook and other execs unveiled new iPhones — the XS, XS Max and XR — and a redesigned Apple Watch at the company’s Cupertino mothership. In short, the XR is bigger and cheaper than last year’s iPhone X, but the new high-end XS line is the one with the best cameras and displays. Our sister site The Verge got some hands-on time with the giant new $1,099 iPhone XS Max, which has a 6.5-inch screen — even bigger than the latest model in Samsung’s famously large Galaxy Note line — but doesn’t feel unwieldy. The iPhone lineup now ranges from $449 to $1,149. The new Apple Watch Series 4 lineup has larger displays and rounder corners, and is the first to include an ECG test for more sophisticated heartbeat measurement — even approved by the U.S. FDA. Apple did not update its popular AirPods, and there’s still no sign of AirPower, its all-in-one wireless charger pad. [Dan Frommer / Recode]
Recode Daily: Apple’s new iPhones, Uber’s new logo, Juul’s new problem
Plus, the human cost of “free” shipping; the shadow side of Instagram influencers; video games are an underrated art form.
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Hurricane Florence is bearing down on the U.S. Eastern seaboard and is expected to make landfall sometime today. More than a million people have been evacuated from the North and South Carolina coastline, and more than 10 million are under hurricane and storm watches and warnings as the storm approaches; here’s the latest on the storm’s trajectory. And here are some thoughts on our current miasma of tribalistic partisanship, which now touches and transforms everything in our public life — even the weather. [Mary Ann Georgantopoulos and Stephanie K. Baer / BuzzFeed News]
“Free” shipping carries a human cost: Business Insider talked with 31 current or recently employed third-party courier drivers about what it’s like to deliver packages for Amazon. Along with other alleged abuses, some drivers described a physically demanding work environment in which, under strict time constraints, they felt pressured to drive at dangerously high speeds, blow through stop signs and even urinate in bottles on their trucks. [Hayley Peterson / Business Insider]
Warning that teenage use of electronic cigarettes has reached “an epidemic proportion,” the Food and Drug Administration gave Juul Labs and four other manufacturers of popular vaping devices 60 days to prove they can keep them away from minors. If they fail, the agency said, it may take the flavored products off the market. The FDA is sending warning letters to 1,100 retailers — including 7-Eleven stores, Walgreens, Circle K convenience shops and Shell gas stations — and issued another 131 fines, ranging from $279 to $11,182, for selling e-cigarettes to anyone under 18. [Sheila Kaplan and Jan Hoffman / The New York Times]
Uber has spent the past year trying to convince customers that it has put its problematic reputation in the past. And what better way to usher in a new era than with a complete rebrand? It now wants to be known as “a platform of mobility”; here’s a look at its simplified new logo, in a typeface that was custom-designed for the company — and looks like an athleisure brand. [Diana Pearl / Adweek]
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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
